Dave Goldberg

I learned with shock today that Dave Goldberg had died.

Dave was a friend, an advisor, a person who would always respond and help. He was available for personal or professional causes, even when there was no obvious benefit for him. He was a great father and husband. He did what he said. He was rare in Silicon Valley. Dave touched a lot of people.

I've known Dave since college, but despite all his success at work, despite the fact that he was half of Silicon Valley's power couple, he remained the same guy he was in the dorms.

Dave's brother asked that we share memories of Dave. I have a lot of personal images to share, but this is LinkedIn, so I'll share some professional ones:

• Dave at Capitol Records in LA, a former Bain consultant trying to make it as a recording executive. Not many Harvard grads then went to LA, and into music, and he was a pioneer.
  
  
• Dave setting up cables on the floor of his new office for Launch in 1995. There was no wifi. Demos of Dave's CD-ROM magazine interviews with rock stars. Launch becomes a website and eventually a public company acquired by Yahoo.
  
  
• Dave at Yahoo, frustrated at big-company life. Launch had become Yahoo Music, long before Spotify.
  
  
• Dave at Benchmark Capital, one of the top venture firms in Silicon Valley, starting multiple companies while having the insight to focus on a 15-person, profitable operation in Portland and grow it into a franchise company in Silicon Valley. 
  
  
• Dave in his newly-finished building for Survey Monkey, wearing a t-shirt, giving advice on how to navigate being an Executive-in-Residence, and making many, many connections to his extensive network.

If you're an entrepreneur, you'd be lucky to achieve a fraction of what Dave did in his life.

My heart goes out to Sheryl, their children, and Dave's family. The world has lost someone great. I'm so sorry.