The similarities are that there was considerable press coverage of Diaspora and that they seemed, at least to me, destined to fail mostly just because it was a hard thing to do given their structure. It is a true shame that this individual took the failure personally as it wasn't at all his fault, again it was primarily structural in my opinion. Gene Kan I understand was somewhat susceptible for other reasons to depression.
It could also be exhaustion from too much sex or something similarly private, and his family/friends wouldn't say anything about cause of death either. Give him the benefit of doubt, will you?
What purpose do stories like this serve? People consider asking for details to be rude. Other than tabloid style storytelling drama, why else should strangers care?
This man died young, but so did the local 19 year old young woman killed just after midnight by a driver just after she rescued an injured dog from the road.
You can already see someone saying the cause of death does not matter, but why does this death announcement matter?
edit: Poster removed his admonishment regarding questions about the cause of death.
People close to this person obviously will suffer due to their loss, but his death announcement gets posted here in some sort of limbo where no one (or very few) knew him. But we must respond with condolences to people we don't know about a person we only know though his involvement in a web application.
edit2: Twitter messages directed at the deceased indicate suicide.
He was actively engaged in trying to spur change in the tech community which makes it something that can become newsworthy, especially when you consider the lost potential.
Indeed. It's exactly because of the work that he was doing that his passing is a meaningful thing to find its way to HN. Honestly, even if he wasn't doing any of that work, I'm of the mind that most people have a story in their lives and most are worth hearing, even if painful.
No, you must not respond; you are not obliged to make any comment on his death. In fact, it would be nice if you specifically refrained from making a comment arguing about whether his death was important in the middle of a thread where everyone else is offering their condolences; including, I would assume, some people who knew him personally. This is a matter of being human.
And if everybody was a plumber, society could not function. This is such an uninteresting observation. Making something universal is usually impractical — that doesn't reflect on the thing itself, except to say that it requires some amount of time or space.
I appreciate the tradeoff, but I don't think that's the case. There are probably only a few thousand people who are on a level of notability to this audience as the young founder of a heavily-hyped project like this. There are many threads on the front page that seem a lot less newsworthy or thought-provoking.
>In fact, it would be nice if you specifically refrained from making a comment arguing about whether his death was important in the middle of a thread where everyone else is offering their condolences
You just highlighted exactly what I tried to write about! Why have a thread full of condolences from strangers directed at strangers and shun any actual discussion?
Most people clicked the story to find out the cause of death. If this young man indeed killed himself, we could have a reasonable discussion about the stresses of life and specifically related to tech, but we can't.
Instead, I strongly believe that most (if not all) condolences posted here come from people fulfilling a social expectation rather than a specific feeling towards this person.
I would hope those who knew this person and know his surviving friends and family have a more direct line of communication than comments on news.yc.
Why have a thread full of condolences from strangers directed at strangers and shun any actual discussion?
Because this is how people deal with the existence of death, and they appreciate having a place to pay their respects independent of having an "actual discussion." Why do you think that ceremonial burial is a near-universal element of human culture? A breaking-news thread announcing a person's early death is a terrible place to have a discussion about "the stresses of life...related to tech." You should have that discussion inside your head, and then engage other people with it at a time when they did not just hear about someone's suicide.
Most of us know about Diaspora, and some want it to succeed . That is reason enough to care about the lives of the project founders, regardless of whether or not we know who they are.
Also, who are you to say that nobody here knew him?
If suicide does turn out to be the cause of death, it is worth talking about. I won't say that there's nothing more tragic than suicide, but it is certainly senseless/needless in almost all cases.
The more awareness of suicide, the risk factors, and how to not tread into that space, the better.
Thank you for mentioning that. It is very paradoxical and quite an unfortunate phenomenon. And I think it is very real. I have a sample of one (a local high school) that suffered what seemed like a large cluster of suicides within a short time range. Then found out about Werther effect.
I am not for censoring information but maybe an admonition to refocus on checking up on friends who might be depressed or stressed out, without specifically mentioning the word "suicide".
A good example of the Werther effect is the string of copycat suicides in South Korea after an actress, Lee Eun-Ju, took her own life in 2005. After her death, the suicide rate of the general population in Korea spiked with notable celebrities also taking their own lives. Here's a frightening statistic from the LA Times "In South Korea, 15,413 took their lives that year [2009], or 28.4 for every 100,000 residents."
As an individual who has overcome manic depression and dealt with suicide personally and amongst friends, it is a difficult issue to approach and conquer, especially because when caught in a downward spiral everything seems to perpetuate it and nothing seems to help. It is not enough to simply ask if a friend is doing alright or has harmful intentions but it takes a person (family or friend) who can weather the storm with them. I feel that it is almost equally difficult for the person helping because they have to be willing to listen to and be understanding of the irrational thoughts that plague a suicidal mind. From an outside perspective, the burden of the troubled is vastly greater than the burden upon a helping hand but I think the cumulative process of helping someone can be equally detrimental and taxing. I hate to make a movie reference but the movie What Dreams May Come paints a good metaphor of the risks involved with trying to pull someone out of their sorrow, although not quite as dramatic.
> The Werther effect not only predicts an increase in suicide, but the majority of the suicides will take place in the same or a similar way as the one publicized. The more similar the person in the publicized suicide is to the people exposed to the information about it, the more likely the age group or demographic is to commit suicide. The increase generally happens only in areas where the suicide story was highly publicized.
(From Wikipedia which turn quoted Meyers, David G. (2009). Social Psychology (10th Ed). New York: McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-337066-8).
During my sophomore year of high school, there was a string (about once every other week) of suicides. They were all linked in some way, a nasty chain of relationships. I think some of the early talk might have kept the chain going. The high school finally sent for proper grief counselors from the local university. It had been 3 or 4 months of gloom. I am not sure if they helped or it was just an ending, but they did stop (could have been the ending of winter thinking about it).
The truly sad part (beyond the ending of so many young lives) was the utter cynicism the rest of us got to. The grief counselor who was dealing with our class was utterly horrified by us wondering how anyone commits suicide by using a door knob and how we concluded that someone was using the suicides to hide a murder. Looking back, I suppose it was a coping mechanism.
Take care of your fellows and don't fool around non-professionals.
Please use use this service if you are even remotely affected by this discussion in a negative way. I fear this will escalate and push a reader over the edge who doesn't think they have an alternative. They do. If you are one of these, please seek help.
Keep their number in your phone. Hopefully you'll never need it, but IMO it's the second most important number after 911. Even if you have had a little bit of training, helping a suicidal person can be very bewildering and difficult, so if you find yourself unable to act effectively, you can pull out your phone, dial this number, and get help from an expert. I know people who are alive because somebody else (in one case a complete stranger) had this number in their phone:
1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
If you find yourself dealing with a suicidal person and you don't have this number handy, dial 911.
I receive annual suicide awareness training at work. One of the things they train us to do is, if we suspect someone might be considering suicide, to ask point-blank: "Are you thinking about hurting yourself." Most people will answer honestly, and then you can get them help if they need it. So while discussing suicide in the abstract can trigger others to commit suicide, discussing it directly with a potentially suicidal person is a critical first step in preventing suicide. Also, most people don't know what to do when dealing with someone suicidal, and the only way to teach them is to talk about it, which creates a bit of a catch-22 when you combine that with the Werther effect.
I have also heard that if a person is all of the sudden talking about buying a gun or telling others how they would never commit suicide, out of the blue, one should be very worried about them.
There's a big difference between talking directly to a person who may be suffering, when you should be direct and then be able to guide them towards help; and talking in a thread like this with a lot of speculation and abstract talk about suicidal behaviours.
tl:dr - you're right, and I missed the point you made in my post.
We don't talk about suicide in society very well let alone within the startup community. Founders find themselves in extremely stressful situations and living lifestyles that exacerbate the effects of this stress. Remember to eat well, try to get some routine exercise, seek both quality and quantity of sleep, and have a couple of confidants that you can rant to. Remember that the alpha males spouting off about toughness and pulling death march schedules while eating nothing but energy bars and coffee are often the ones hurting most (i.e., just like how a lot of the most vehement homosexual bashers turn out to be homosexual).
I know YC likes to promote flocking together as founders, but I think it's really healthy to have one or two close confidants that are completely outside the startup community. You need to be able to rant to these people and unwind emotionally. A lot of your rants might be non-sensical, might be hypocritical, and even a tad self-centred. The last thing you need is another opinion in that situation, especially one telling you you're wrong for feeling the way you do. You're least likely to find one from people that simply aren't interested in entrepreneurship.
I met him at Burning Man this year, had a couple of good conversations with him, and have "email Ilya" as a current item on my to-do list. This is the first I've heard of his death. :-( His close friends may not be getting this news through HN, but surely a number of acquaintances are.
It's not a question of "importance" or "purpose", it's a question of interest or relevance.
This young man's death is just as "important" as the young woman you mention...they are both tragedies, they both will leave an indelible wound on many people's lives.
However, this is a social news site for the tech community. The young woman's death is not covered here because it's not relevant to the tech community.
This young man started (with others) a project which is followed, used, and worked on by many in the tech community...it's of interest to them that one of the initiators died just as any other major development would be. It's also safe to say that there are a few people here who either knew him personally or had had some interaction with him, so it's of interest to the community when one of it's own dies.
Any time you load Hacker News there will probably be some stories that don't interest you. However, as long as they follow the community guidelines, are relevant to hackers, etc...it's best to simply skip them.
As for your other point(s), I agree somewhat with what you seem to be saying. I don't think it's rude per se to respectfully ask if anyone happens to know the cause of death. I would find it more rude to speculate. I also agree that a bunch of strangers offering their condolences doesn't accomplish or mean much, but I can also appreciate that people are just trying to be nice to anyone who did know him who happens to be reading.
If you simply must speculate, you should at least try to remain tactful and be careful not to speculate too wildly (there are more likely and less slanderous reasons for a cause of death to be omitted than drugs or alcohol). Please remember, this is a person who was loved by many other people. Don't inflict pain needlessly.
As long as someone close to the deceased has chosen not to share the matter, we should respect their decision.
It's the case where no close family/friends have expressed such a decision that concern should be raised... and it's hard to determine without good reportage.
The founders of Diaspora were in a really unenviable position. They started off with a wave of national press as well as solid financial support from grassroot users. As time went on, it became increasingly clear that they would not be able to accomplish the goal they originally set out to do. They had failed. Publicly. This can be very devastating psychologically to someone who has always 'succeeded' in life.
I'm not saying this was the case for Ilya, or had any part in his death, but I know for me it would have been hard to swallow. There are many silent founders out there that gave up everything for an unrealized dream in the path to startup success and it has a real toll on psyches.
Best wishes to his family & friends.
EDIT: This appears to be a very controversial comment. The vote count seems to be oscillating up and down very rapidly. I don't want to make this out to be a discussion about Diaspora, so I won't comment further on that point. But the mental health of founders is a real issue and rarely discussed. Maybe there should be a more open discussion about this issue.
I'm interested to know how they have been perceived as failure. I think this is all very relative, and failure is a strong word. Github still have 1 day old commit and the community is apparently still active.
Failure in this context likely means "is not attracting large swathes of Facebook users" though frankly I think that's but one measure of the success of a social networking website.
Not necessarily. If you can make a federated social network that can interoperate with the networks people already use, people can migrate to it incrementally.
I suppose it is when the narrative is the next Facebook killer which the media fostered and perpetuated creating some unreasonable expectation for their team.
As far as failures come, the only thing I have heard about diaspora are the following things:
* Source-code full of freshman's mistakes and security exploits. Basically not-to-be-trusted quality code, released to the public for deployment.
* All money invested in the project wasted without anything to show for.
* I know absolutely nobody using diaspora, expect one person.
* This person attempted to invite me, and diaspora failed to send me the invite email. Now he cannot invite me again.
It's a laughing stock. For the parts of the internet which has even heard about it. Which is the minority of the internet. As a social network this is a failure on absolutely every aspect I can find measures for.
The goals were admirable, but goals alone wont win you any credit. You have to get there as well. Diaspora didn't and most likely wont.
Not just the aspect of "failing". But also mix in the tough, gruesome aspect of working 12 hours a day with little to no time for social life. And the inability for most people to understand what you're going through. And if you don't got a significant other, it makes it feels like you're all alone in this battle.
Not saying this is the case for him, but in the end, we're just cells.. and if we don't receive certain stimuli, science dictates we go crazy.
Very important comment. The biggest risk in doing a startup is not the financial risk per se.
It's the psychological risk of knowing you really, really tried -- and still failed. That is the hard part, because everyone goes in with Dilbert/mass media notions of how easy it is to be a CEO or (just as bad) Social Network illusions of how easy it is to grow meteorically while fighting off lawsuits.
The truth is that it's not easy, that it takes a special and lucky person. If you fail it's really hard to realize you aren't that special. The possibly healthier (?) way of dealing is to convince yourself that it was bad luck, or the other guy cheated. Then it's not as much of a hit to the ego, to the sense of your own capabilities. But it's hard.
>>The possibly healthier (?) way of dealing is to convince yourself that it was bad luck, or the other guy cheated
I think it would be healthier to accept that failure is normal and to rather enjoy the road to Ithaca [1]. Life without challenges/failures would be too boring.
This is not part of the american cultural narrative and thus will be harder to accept even to your own psyche.
Its important to understand how the difference between your own thinking and society's thinking can and will affect your own happiness (usually in a negative way). Its not something many people think about but has very real consequences.
I just bought the book "reWork" by the guys at 37signals and so now my opinion on every business bei doomed to fail is different. But I think we're missing the point. What if this isn't about failure at all? What if Diaspora was widely thought to be a big success?
What I'm getting at is maybe it wasn't "failure" that disturbed this man but simply the pressure to succeed. I'm someone who is succeeding in business so far but I still get bad bouts of depression and feel like a failure anyway. It's not just me either, it can be anyone.
I don't know enough about this man and Diaspora to have insight into his thoughts or to know about the success or failure of the company but I haven't seen any indications from anyone here that he was distressed over failure. It could've just been the pressure of it all. Whether you've made it big or you're still the little guy in a garage that pressure is the same. It's all relative. The little guy worried about payng rent and the big guy sweats over the down payment on the mansion. Same pressure, different context.
It doesn't take a special person, so much as it's simply the case that no matter who you are, your startup is likely to fail.
When I was much younger and starting my first (fundably doomed) startup, one of my cofounders liked to say, "yeah, most businesses fail, but those statistics include companies trying to sell soft drinks to Eskimos and combination Chinese food/pizza restaurants". Then we'd all chuckle, knowing that the statistics most certainly didn't capture dynamic new technology firms like ours.
No. Most companies fail. Look at the list of dead YC companies. Those were screened by a team that has specialized in doing nothing but screening founding teams and then attempting to give them every advantage their considerable and growing infrastructure and connections can give them. And they still fail.
Because that is what startups do. They fail.
The best, most talented, most experienced founders in the world would presumably be among the first to tell you that you can't read anything about your self from the simple fact that your company failed. Learn what you can, but don't ever let it grind on you.
(Some people just shouldn't be in this game, for whatever it's worth, like Matt Damon said about the no-limit players in Rounders; not because they can't, but because it's not healthy for them.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't YC focussing on relatively high-risk ventures in the hope of hitting it big? If they picked a roster of less ambitious projects, but with the same quality of personnel, then surely the failure rate would drop.
It's probably just vocabulary. We think startups as tech-related, but there's probably just as many new companies created in the restaurant sector as ours -- and they have their own restaurant investment companies.
Arguably he failed at Apple too (the first time around).
Another lesson to take from Steve's experience: the bigger the impact your startup is likely to make, the greater the chance it will fail. That might seem quite counterintuitive at first. Certainly, if there's a market and the demand is there, then success should be forthcoming, right?
Except if the problem is unsolved, it's probably unsolved for a reason. I'm reminded of something I read (I believe it was from "Germs, Guns, and Steel", but I don't have it to reference): invention is the mother of necessity! Safe startups give people something they already want. Great startups give people something they didn't even know they needed.
But humans are dumb animals. The first three times you show them something better, they'll turn their backs. So the more important your work is, the more likely you are to fail, and fail, and fail again. It's not you, it's just human nature.
Actually I will take that further, as a small business owner.
EVERY business fails. Every single one. Some businesses somehow manage to stay in business when they run out of money and keep going on until they succeed. However, that's what businesses are up against. I think going into that armed and aware is one thing that makes success more likely.
> If you fail it's really hard to realize you aren't that special.
All of the most special people in history endured many failures. So while failure can teach us many things, "you're not special" is absolutely not one of them.
>> It's the psychological risk of knowing you really, really tried -- and still failed.
As a successful developer who spent years thinking "with enough time, I can solve any problem" and was just caught back by reality (efforts do not always imply success), this comment stuck a chord with me.
It also takes a lot of support, and circular support as even if you are feeling down, your partner may be too, and its both your jobs to keep the other happy. Its very stressful being in the limbo state with everyone trying to kill you, you are trying to build something, you want to get money to continue working, nobody thinks its a good idea till you prove it which takes time, etc.
It definitely takes a mental fortitude and a dash of ignorance to do this stuff.
As s startup owner I feel like I am a sinking man and each floating wood chip around is a hope - Learning to float between moving from one wood chip to other is the key to me.
I guess I will fail that day when I will conclude that I am too tired of trying (not really, really tried -- and still failed).
I don't believe "The truth is ... that it takes a special and lucky person".
The truth is we need one or two hands on our shoulder and someone to stand during the darkest hours and say "darkest hours are always before the sun comes". ..sad to read about Ilya Zhitomirskiy.
I imagine it's a difficult situation for the remaining founders, especially for those (if any) that encouraged Ilya to initially participate in their Diaspora team (it would be for me if I were in their shoes). I think it's important to remember in a context like this that failure is part of the plan: entrepreneurs are risk-seekers by definition, and the harder you fail, the more you learn, to such an extent that you could pass with flying colors a regular contributor role at a big software company. In the context of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kan , I'd just like people to keep their perspective and not to take the assumed risk for granted by thinking they're a failure.
1. If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
2. Success is measured in many ways, and one of those ways is dollars. There are many different ways to get dollars.
3. Failure leads to success.
4. Diaspora got GREAT and HIGHLY SUPPORTIVE press about 2 months ago from Free Software Magazine.
5. Diaspora had substantial cash flow shortly after launching the foundation. In fact they got SO MUCH MONEY that PayPal froze their account, probably because they thought it was fraud (fraud detection is REALLY hard and false positives are cheaper than false negatives...this is IMHO the most likely interpretation).
On the contrary, Ilya was in a GREAT position. LOTS of people would have given their left testicle to be him. Now, if he couldn't handle the stress, or he had one too many shots of Vodka, that is tragic, but don't try to bring Diaspora down with him. The facts are not on your side.
tl;dr It is WAAAAY too early to be declaring Diaspora a failure.
Actually I don't believe that Diaspora failed. The fact that I'm using it on a daily basis, and not using Facebook, is pretty much a win as far as I'm concerned. Diaspora still has some way to go, but it's usable.
I have a hard time seeing Diaspora overtaking Facebook or G+ for that matter, especially with the former becoming more entrenched with site authentication.
Certainly, success is subjective but I think the expectations for Diaspora was to be a legit alternative to Facebook and now G+. And while it is an alternative, it's not popular enough for most people to switch over. Furthermore, Diaspora got widely criticized with regards to their funding and subsequent releases... specifically people expecting much more for the amount of investment.
And in fact; given that both G+ and FB now have features (particularly privacy features) inspired by Diaspora suggests success to their original goals.
Yes, the mental health of founders is something that should be discussed more. I do see a fair amount of articles that approach the subject but maybe not intensely enough.
Burnout is one thing but serious depression is another altogether. The pressure of starting a small local business is enough to drive a person mad. Just think about the guys being covered in TC, the widely known ones, the "stars" of the tech startup world. We all like to think they're superhuman and can conquer anything. We all like to think they're living large and wish we had what they have but really it's all relative.
This lime of work (starting a business, startup, whatever you want to call it) is the furthest thing from easy and glamorous as you can get. It's important to have a support network and to take care of yourself especially well when venturing on an endeavor like that. I am insignificant but I can relate. And you know, I bet a many others would echo that sentiment.
It's so damn terrible to see someone so young go like that. To imagine what he could've accomplished in the future and how his family, friends, and coworkers are now robbed of a terrific person is so sad it's beyond words. And make no mistake, we don't have to know someone to know they're great people. We're all great people. If you have just one relationship with a single person in your life then you're special and wonderful in someone else's eyes and you qualify as being great. I didn't know the guy, barely knew of him, but it sucks to see such a great person go.
There are rumors that his death was self-inflicted, which is quite sad. Every time we see a young smart kid die like this, it should remind us to remember others as we go through our lives. Too often we ignore other peoples feelings, and then something like this happens. Take a moment to talk to the people you love to make sure something like this doesn't happen to them.
(If it turns out this is inaccurate, please excuse the speculation, but I still think this is important.)
Yes "self-inflicted" is a medical/legal term which includes suicide.
In some jurisdiction there is a difference if "the balance of mind was disturbed" or if the coroner believed it was an attempted suicide (cry for help) that 'went wrong'
The death of the founder of any well-known startup merits mention here. The startup community is a close knit global one, we don't just meet each other at professional networking events, we share our lives with each other.
Perhaps unlike any other profession we have a closeness that binds us, we socialize, we date, we make lifelong friends from within the startup community.
Even if we don't know the startup founder directly we know of their work, their successes and their failures, their contribution to the story of the startup world.
Speculation suggests that it may have been self-inflicted, even if it's not true, it's worth stepping back and appreciating the fact that startup founders often find themselves under immense pressure and often keep it quiet.
When's the last time you asked someone how their startup was doing to get a reply "not so good", founders are expected to be eternal optimists and this expectation can make it harder for those struggling or suffering to ask for help from their friends (who are often from the startup world themselves).
Maybe we need a Startups Anonymous to give founders a place where they can drop their public persona and be honest about the worries that are keeping them up at night.
Completely agree, and for that reason I started a meetup here in London recently called London Tech Founders Anonymous (http://www.meetup.com/LTechFA); we've had two great sessions thus far, and indeed as you've noted, one of the points raised in support of the initiative by attendees present at the inaugural session was the liberation of the format due to the group's aims; viz., steering participants away from the ubiquitous "We're killing it!" in favour of actual truth and deeper bonding/learning that, in my opinion, seems underserved in the community generally.
That being said, great initiatives like FailCon (http://thefailcon.com/) do exist, however I personally don't believe a consumption-centric format (i.e. standard lecture/conference/meetup format) will cut it; deep interaction and open sharing on a regular basis is the only way.
We started doing this in Seattle last year with some success (http://startupsanonymous.com). I've kept it dormant during a busy move to New Orleans, but if anybody's interested in working together to get it started again I'm up for it. There's a need.
And we also need Plumber anonymous and Taxi driver anonymous...
Stop it! Don't downvote me just yet.
In all seriousness i think this is about expectations; not specifically related to start-ups or even business; expectations from parents, friends and even from yourself can be very stressful... and if you are prone to depression it just gets worse.
When's the last time you asked someone how their startup was doing to get a reply "not so good", founders are expected to be eternal optimists and this expectation can make it harder for those struggling or suffering to ask for help from their friends (who are often from the startup world themselves).
So true, the need to keep that positive projection can really eat people up. It can even be really hard to complain or talk about the downside with friends and family. A mentor who's been through it themselves [1] may be one of the best ways to not only get advice but also release the stress by being really open about problems.
This is too sad. Only 21 for goodness sake; his life was just beginning. Even without having known him, this feels painful and I cannot imagine what his family and friends are going through. I'm reminded of a Yoruba (West African language) saying to "kill someone alive", i.e. effect of something so painful on a person such that although technically alive, for all intents and purposes, he/she is dead. How does one possibly (if ever) recover from losing a child/sibling/friend in this way?
Wow. I never met Ilya in person, but I spoke with him several times via a private mailing list of people doing social network research. This is incredibly unfortunate. In my limited interactions with him he was always incredibly intelligent and willing to help out others.
Why don't we wait for official comment before speculating on the cause of his death. The last thing his family/friends/coworkers need is false rumors. Not saying they're necessarily false or correct, I just think we should wait out of courtesy. I know I'd hope people do that if I died...
Things like this often give me pause for thought. Often this community, and indeed myself, drive myself to attain better results, and generally push towards a wealthy career, so often we can forget what is truly important.
I'm a religious person, so often this translates to worrying about how I'm prepared should I also meet an early grave, but its important that in times like this that we also see the importance of others in our lives, our family, relationships etc.
Easy to forget that the thing we work so hard for can be wiped away in a split second.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kan
The similarities are that there was considerable press coverage of Diaspora and that they seemed, at least to me, destined to fail mostly just because it was a hard thing to do given their structure. It is a true shame that this individual took the failure personally as it wasn't at all his fault, again it was primarily structural in my opinion. Gene Kan I understand was somewhat susceptible for other reasons to depression.
https://twitter.com/#!/search/zhitomirskiyi
Did you know him? Is this just speculation?
This man died young, but so did the local 19 year old young woman killed just after midnight by a driver just after she rescued an injured dog from the road.
You can already see someone saying the cause of death does not matter, but why does this death announcement matter?
edit: Poster removed his admonishment regarding questions about the cause of death.
People close to this person obviously will suffer due to their loss, but his death announcement gets posted here in some sort of limbo where no one (or very few) knew him. But we must respond with condolences to people we don't know about a person we only know though his involvement in a web application.
edit2: Twitter messages directed at the deceased indicate suicide.
In any case, I just donated to the project: https://www.diasporafoundation.org/donate – maybe something good can come from something so sad.
You just highlighted exactly what I tried to write about! Why have a thread full of condolences from strangers directed at strangers and shun any actual discussion?
Most people clicked the story to find out the cause of death. If this young man indeed killed himself, we could have a reasonable discussion about the stresses of life and specifically related to tech, but we can't.
Instead, I strongly believe that most (if not all) condolences posted here come from people fulfilling a social expectation rather than a specific feeling towards this person.
I would hope those who knew this person and know his surviving friends and family have a more direct line of communication than comments on news.yc.
Because this is how people deal with the existence of death, and they appreciate having a place to pay their respects independent of having an "actual discussion." Why do you think that ceremonial burial is a near-universal element of human culture? A breaking-news thread announcing a person's early death is a terrible place to have a discussion about "the stresses of life...related to tech." You should have that discussion inside your head, and then engage other people with it at a time when they did not just hear about someone's suicide.
Also, who are you to say that nobody here knew him?
He will be missed.
The more awareness of suicide, the risk factors, and how to not tread into that space, the better.
Suicide has a strong triggering effect; see "Werther effect".
Talking about suicide has to be done carefully to avoid triggering further suicidal behaviour; especially after someone has just completed suicide.
I'd agree that more awareness of suicide prevention is very important.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werther_effect
I am not for censoring information but maybe an admonition to refocus on checking up on friends who might be depressed or stressed out, without specifically mentioning the word "suicide".
A good example of the Werther effect is the string of copycat suicides in South Korea after an actress, Lee Eun-Ju, took her own life in 2005. After her death, the suicide rate of the general population in Korea spiked with notable celebrities also taking their own lives. Here's a frightening statistic from the LA Times "In South Korea, 15,413 took their lives that year [2009], or 28.4 for every 100,000 residents."
As an individual who has overcome manic depression and dealt with suicide personally and amongst friends, it is a difficult issue to approach and conquer, especially because when caught in a downward spiral everything seems to perpetuate it and nothing seems to help. It is not enough to simply ask if a friend is doing alright or has harmful intentions but it takes a person (family or friend) who can weather the storm with them. I feel that it is almost equally difficult for the person helping because they have to be willing to listen to and be understanding of the irrational thoughts that plague a suicidal mind. From an outside perspective, the burden of the troubled is vastly greater than the burden upon a helping hand but I think the cumulative process of helping someone can be equally detrimental and taxing. I hate to make a movie reference but the movie What Dreams May Come paints a good metaphor of the risks involved with trying to pull someone out of their sorrow, although not quite as dramatic.
(From Wikipedia which turn quoted Meyers, David G. (2009). Social Psychology (10th Ed). New York: McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-337066-8).
The truly sad part (beyond the ending of so many young lives) was the utter cynicism the rest of us got to. The grief counselor who was dealing with our class was utterly horrified by us wondering how anyone commits suicide by using a door knob and how we concluded that someone was using the suicides to hide a murder. Looking back, I suppose it was a coping mechanism.
Take care of your fellows and don't fool around non-professionals.
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
I'm not affiliated.
Please use use this service if you are even remotely affected by this discussion in a negative way. I fear this will escalate and push a reader over the edge who doesn't think they have an alternative. They do. If you are one of these, please seek help.
1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255)
If you find yourself dealing with a suicidal person and you don't have this number handy, dial 911.
There's a big difference between talking directly to a person who may be suffering, when you should be direct and then be able to guide them towards help; and talking in a thread like this with a lot of speculation and abstract talk about suicidal behaviours.
tl:dr - you're right, and I missed the point you made in my post.
I know YC likes to promote flocking together as founders, but I think it's really healthy to have one or two close confidants that are completely outside the startup community. You need to be able to rant to these people and unwind emotionally. A lot of your rants might be non-sensical, might be hypocritical, and even a tad self-centred. The last thing you need is another opinion in that situation, especially one telling you you're wrong for feeling the way you do. You're least likely to find one from people that simply aren't interested in entrepreneurship.
This young man's death is just as "important" as the young woman you mention...they are both tragedies, they both will leave an indelible wound on many people's lives.
However, this is a social news site for the tech community. The young woman's death is not covered here because it's not relevant to the tech community.
This young man started (with others) a project which is followed, used, and worked on by many in the tech community...it's of interest to them that one of the initiators died just as any other major development would be. It's also safe to say that there are a few people here who either knew him personally or had had some interaction with him, so it's of interest to the community when one of it's own dies.
Any time you load Hacker News there will probably be some stories that don't interest you. However, as long as they follow the community guidelines, are relevant to hackers, etc...it's best to simply skip them.
As for your other point(s), I agree somewhat with what you seem to be saying. I don't think it's rude per se to respectfully ask if anyone happens to know the cause of death. I would find it more rude to speculate. I also agree that a bunch of strangers offering their condolences doesn't accomplish or mean much, but I can also appreciate that people are just trying to be nice to anyone who did know him who happens to be reading.
that's why the news of Michael Jackson's death caused Twitter and even Google to crash
Maybe, but it remains a choice whether or not to say something.
Conventional manners tend to lean toward "not" in this context.
Google did not crash, an automated system blocked the queries as they looked like spam.
It's the case where no close family/friends have expressed such a decision that concern should be raised... and it's hard to determine without good reportage.
I'm not saying this was the case for Ilya, or had any part in his death, but I know for me it would have been hard to swallow. There are many silent founders out there that gave up everything for an unrealized dream in the path to startup success and it has a real toll on psyches.
Best wishes to his family & friends.
EDIT: This appears to be a very controversial comment. The vote count seems to be oscillating up and down very rapidly. I don't want to make this out to be a discussion about Diaspora, so I won't comment further on that point. But the mental health of founders is a real issue and rarely discussed. Maybe there should be a more open discussion about this issue.
* Source-code full of freshman's mistakes and security exploits. Basically not-to-be-trusted quality code, released to the public for deployment.
* All money invested in the project wasted without anything to show for.
* I know absolutely nobody using diaspora, expect one person.
* This person attempted to invite me, and diaspora failed to send me the invite email. Now he cannot invite me again.
It's a laughing stock. For the parts of the internet which has even heard about it. Which is the minority of the internet. As a social network this is a failure on absolutely every aspect I can find measures for.
The goals were admirable, but goals alone wont win you any credit. You have to get there as well. Diaspora didn't and most likely wont.
Not saying this is the case for him, but in the end, we're just cells.. and if we don't receive certain stimuli, science dictates we go crazy.
It's the psychological risk of knowing you really, really tried -- and still failed. That is the hard part, because everyone goes in with Dilbert/mass media notions of how easy it is to be a CEO or (just as bad) Social Network illusions of how easy it is to grow meteorically while fighting off lawsuits.
The truth is that it's not easy, that it takes a special and lucky person. If you fail it's really hard to realize you aren't that special. The possibly healthier (?) way of dealing is to convince yourself that it was bad luck, or the other guy cheated. Then it's not as much of a hit to the ego, to the sense of your own capabilities. But it's hard.
I think it would be healthier to accept that failure is normal and to rather enjoy the road to Ithaca [1]. Life without challenges/failures would be too boring.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_P._Cavafy#Ithaca
Its important to understand how the difference between your own thinking and society's thinking can and will affect your own happiness (usually in a negative way). Its not something many people think about but has very real consequences.
What I'm getting at is maybe it wasn't "failure" that disturbed this man but simply the pressure to succeed. I'm someone who is succeeding in business so far but I still get bad bouts of depression and feel like a failure anyway. It's not just me either, it can be anyone.
I don't know enough about this man and Diaspora to have insight into his thoughts or to know about the success or failure of the company but I haven't seen any indications from anyone here that he was distressed over failure. It could've just been the pressure of it all. Whether you've made it big or you're still the little guy in a garage that pressure is the same. It's all relative. The little guy worried about payng rent and the big guy sweats over the down payment on the mansion. Same pressure, different context.
I don;t think we will ever know, but I will say that pressure to succeed and not fail is fundamentally unhealthy.
When I was much younger and starting my first (fundably doomed) startup, one of my cofounders liked to say, "yeah, most businesses fail, but those statistics include companies trying to sell soft drinks to Eskimos and combination Chinese food/pizza restaurants". Then we'd all chuckle, knowing that the statistics most certainly didn't capture dynamic new technology firms like ours.
No. Most companies fail. Look at the list of dead YC companies. Those were screened by a team that has specialized in doing nothing but screening founding teams and then attempting to give them every advantage their considerable and growing infrastructure and connections can give them. And they still fail.
Because that is what startups do. They fail.
The best, most talented, most experienced founders in the world would presumably be among the first to tell you that you can't read anything about your self from the simple fact that your company failed. Learn what you can, but don't ever let it grind on you.
(Some people just shouldn't be in this game, for whatever it's worth, like Matt Damon said about the no-limit players in Rounders; not because they can't, but because it's not healthy for them.)
Another lesson to take from Steve's experience: the bigger the impact your startup is likely to make, the greater the chance it will fail. That might seem quite counterintuitive at first. Certainly, if there's a market and the demand is there, then success should be forthcoming, right?
Except if the problem is unsolved, it's probably unsolved for a reason. I'm reminded of something I read (I believe it was from "Germs, Guns, and Steel", but I don't have it to reference): invention is the mother of necessity! Safe startups give people something they already want. Great startups give people something they didn't even know they needed.
But humans are dumb animals. The first three times you show them something better, they'll turn their backs. So the more important your work is, the more likely you are to fail, and fail, and fail again. It's not you, it's just human nature.
That's why he's so inspiring. He's a protagonist you can identify with, who triumphed over setbacks and flaws.
EVERY business fails. Every single one. Some businesses somehow manage to stay in business when they run out of money and keep going on until they succeed. However, that's what businesses are up against. I think going into that armed and aware is one thing that makes success more likely.
http://ycombinator.com/dan.html
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=859117
All of the most special people in history endured many failures. So while failure can teach us many things, "you're not special" is absolutely not one of them.
As a successful developer who spent years thinking "with enough time, I can solve any problem" and was just caught back by reality (efforts do not always imply success), this comment stuck a chord with me.
It definitely takes a mental fortitude and a dash of ignorance to do this stuff.
I guess I will fail that day when I will conclude that I am too tired of trying (not really, really tried -- and still failed).
I don't believe "The truth is ... that it takes a special and lucky person". The truth is we need one or two hands on our shoulder and someone to stand during the darkest hours and say "darkest hours are always before the sun comes". ..sad to read about Ilya Zhitomirskiy.
2. Success is measured in many ways, and one of those ways is dollars. There are many different ways to get dollars.
3. Failure leads to success.
4. Diaspora got GREAT and HIGHLY SUPPORTIVE press about 2 months ago from Free Software Magazine.
5. Diaspora had substantial cash flow shortly after launching the foundation. In fact they got SO MUCH MONEY that PayPal froze their account, probably because they thought it was fraud (fraud detection is REALLY hard and false positives are cheaper than false negatives...this is IMHO the most likely interpretation).
On the contrary, Ilya was in a GREAT position. LOTS of people would have given their left testicle to be him. Now, if he couldn't handle the stress, or he had one too many shots of Vodka, that is tragic, but don't try to bring Diaspora down with him. The facts are not on your side.
tl;dr It is WAAAAY too early to be declaring Diaspora a failure.
This is one of the great overlooked points.
Certainly, success is subjective but I think the expectations for Diaspora was to be a legit alternative to Facebook and now G+. And while it is an alternative, it's not popular enough for most people to switch over. Furthermore, Diaspora got widely criticized with regards to their funding and subsequent releases... specifically people expecting much more for the amount of investment.
Burnout is one thing but serious depression is another altogether. The pressure of starting a small local business is enough to drive a person mad. Just think about the guys being covered in TC, the widely known ones, the "stars" of the tech startup world. We all like to think they're superhuman and can conquer anything. We all like to think they're living large and wish we had what they have but really it's all relative.
This lime of work (starting a business, startup, whatever you want to call it) is the furthest thing from easy and glamorous as you can get. It's important to have a support network and to take care of yourself especially well when venturing on an endeavor like that. I am insignificant but I can relate. And you know, I bet a many others would echo that sentiment.
It's so damn terrible to see someone so young go like that. To imagine what he could've accomplished in the future and how his family, friends, and coworkers are now robbed of a terrific person is so sad it's beyond words. And make no mistake, we don't have to know someone to know they're great people. We're all great people. If you have just one relationship with a single person in your life then you're special and wonderful in someone else's eyes and you qualify as being great. I didn't know the guy, barely knew of him, but it sucks to see such a great person go.
(If it turns out this is inaccurate, please excuse the speculation, but I still think this is important.)
I think it makes it harder to do this for introverts, and there is a larger number of those in the tech community.
Also, perhaps electronic communication is not always adequate for this. So take the time to meet and visit in person.
In some jurisdiction there is a difference if "the balance of mind was disturbed" or if the coroner believed it was an attempted suicide (cry for help) that 'went wrong'
Perhaps unlike any other profession we have a closeness that binds us, we socialize, we date, we make lifelong friends from within the startup community.
Even if we don't know the startup founder directly we know of their work, their successes and their failures, their contribution to the story of the startup world.
Speculation suggests that it may have been self-inflicted, even if it's not true, it's worth stepping back and appreciating the fact that startup founders often find themselves under immense pressure and often keep it quiet.
When's the last time you asked someone how their startup was doing to get a reply "not so good", founders are expected to be eternal optimists and this expectation can make it harder for those struggling or suffering to ask for help from their friends (who are often from the startup world themselves).
Maybe we need a Startups Anonymous to give founders a place where they can drop their public persona and be honest about the worries that are keeping them up at night.
That being said, great initiatives like FailCon (http://thefailcon.com/) do exist, however I personally don't believe a consumption-centric format (i.e. standard lecture/conference/meetup format) will cut it; deep interaction and open sharing on a regular basis is the only way.
We in LTFA adhere to Chatham House rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule), so there is confidence when unburdening ourselves... and that's a big part of it, tbh!
Stop it! Don't downvote me just yet.
In all seriousness i think this is about expectations; not specifically related to start-ups or even business; expectations from parents, friends and even from yourself can be very stressful... and if you are prone to depression it just gets worse.
So true, the need to keep that positive projection can really eat people up. It can even be really hard to complain or talk about the downside with friends and family. A mentor who's been through it themselves [1] may be one of the best ways to not only get advice but also release the stress by being really open about problems.
[1] best if they don't have a financial interst.
I hope the passing of a co-founder doesn't result in the passing of the project as well.
My condolences to all who knew him.
http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda
Even if it was suicide, this too we will overcome.
I'm a religious person, so often this translates to worrying about how I'm prepared should I also meet an early grave, but its important that in times like this that we also see the importance of others in our lives, our family, relationships etc.
Easy to forget that the thing we work so hard for can be wiped away in a split second.
My deepest sympathies to all involved.