An old family friend was a brilliant engineer. He then had a stroke and recovered (early 50s), but within a few months started acting strange. He started making really inappropriate statements, and generally acting weird, started buying commemorative coins and not paying his bills. Then he started talking gibberish and couldn't understand people. His motor functions eventually deteriorated and he passed away a few weeks ago. Absolutely horrifying. By the time we all figured it out, it was a couple of years in.
What Happened to Lee
171–180 of 299 posts
Re: What Happened to Lee
#172Terrifying. As a software engineer, shit like this scares me. I've felt like I'm on a steady, slow, decline for the last ~4 years. Is it just burnout? Do I need a new hobby? I used to love programming... Spent 12 hours a day jamming on it. Now, I struggle to keep my mind on a line of code for more than 5 minutes. At what point is it just burnout, or at what point is it something more? That's what's terrifying to me.…
I'm here with you, I still love the idea of software, but I can't get myself to sit there and code even the most fun projects. I had a great idea for a project to start a business, I know people would need it, but I just can't get myself to do it. It's frustrating and makes me really depressed that I'm like this.
I had this feeling for many years then finally put together 6 months of effort on an MVP that got zero traction. That great idea? Not so great in reality, I’d been kidding myself. So if it’s any consolation, great idea and great executions are really rare. The common advice is to build a landing page and get x number of signups for a beta before writing a line of code. Makes sense in retrospect.
Re: What Happened to Lee
#173Sandra did a wonderful piece in capturing Lee, his family, his work, and his degeneration. Lee was a coworker and roommate of mine for years.
Some additional info that might be of interest to this crowd:
He was fantastic at video games (RTS and RPG) and chess. He had impeccable hand-eye coordination. He co-founded a gaming clan. None of that is relevant anymore.
There is nothing to be done. His condition can't be solved (within his timeframe) by medicine or technology. eastdakota offered to spend whatever it took, but the least worst option was to move him across the ocean and turn him into a test subject for tests that he probably wouldn't tolerate in his current state.
He was deliberate in "minimizing toil". His university projects morphed into patents and a job at UnSpam and Project HoneyPot. Project HoneyPot's technology unlocked the core value to CloudFlare, which he cofounded. His projects and stacks were deliberately chosen for maximal reuse and to minimize wasted effort.
I thank Matthew and Michelle for keeping the story of his journey alive. I can't imagine the tech periodicals are knocking down their doors to write stories like these. Connie Loizos had another piece on him at TechCrunch in 2019[1]
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/15/cloudflare-has-a-third-cof...
Re: What Happened to Lee
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and he's looking for it to be financed by other people while giving them nothing in return for it.
They get the exact same thing, actually. That’s how insurance works (or is supposed to): it spreads the risk among all subscribers.
>They get the exact same thing, actually.
Not paid for by him, though, because his premiums wouldn't even cover his own medical expenses. That is the whole reason why health insurance companies would charge much higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions or would turn them down.
>it spreads the risk among all subscribers.
Some people are much more likely than others to need expensive medical care. If you charge low risk and high risk people the same amount of money, then on average, the low risk people are going to be paying for a lot more medical care than they consume, and the high risk people are going to be consuming a lot more medical care than they pay for.
Re: What Happened to Lee
#175Lee interviewed me at Cloudflare. At that time he was still quite active and very interested in his work. It was definitely a noticeable decline, but we all just attributed it to burn out.
I think everyone at Cloudflare was heartbroken when Matthew announced his diagnosis. It was hard to take in.
We love you Lee, you are a champ! You've left a legacy and made the world a better place. Thanks for the opportunity you and the team gave me to work at Cloudflare.
Re: What Happened to Lee
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a CSF leak repaired by Dr. Schievink at Cedars-Sinai. My diagnosis happened after I had an acute attack of intracranial hypotension shortly following a long and bumpy session of riding mowing. This attack involved a 'worst headache of my life' that was somewhat relieved by being horizontal. Getting to the hospital seemed too painful, so I stuck it out at home and the headache went away. A couple days later I de…
If you don't mind answering, how old were you at the time and what was your proximity to Cedars-Sinai? I have slight regret with not double booking an appointment with Schievink when he personally called me. For some likely completely unreasonable reason, I feel like Dr. Carroll is a bit better of a choice having had a child with a leak. Had an appt with Carroll a small ways out - was in San Diego for strange reasons…
I was 30 when all of this transpired initally (I had my surgery at the beginning of last September). I actually live quite far away from Cedars, in Illinois, but forwarded my local medical records to Dr. Schievink after a lot of online research. Post-surgery I stayed with a friend from college who lives in Santa Monica, which was an enormous help, but it also wouldn't be so bad to post up in a hotel. From initial inquiries to the surgery took ~2-3 months, which surprised me.
I haven't interacted with Dr. Carroll, but my general impression of Dr. Schievink was very positive. Everyone in the whole process at Cedars was awesome. That said, I do still have some lingering issues recently that superficially seem spine-related, despite being assured that my saga was over. It has definitely been an improvement, though, relative to pre-surgery.
I'm sorry to hear to you're going through all of this, but there really is light at the end of the tunnel, and I hope you get there sooner than later.
If you have other questions, you can email me at my HN handle @ gmail and I will try to help as I can.
Re: What Happened to Lee
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is great: your code runs right near the data it’s working with. If it’s the pits, you need a better suited development environment. I use emacs and interactively code inside the DB. Python, Lua, JavaScript, PGSQL, whatever.
I'm a journeyman in this space, and don't know emacs well. Can you help me unpack your comment here? You write python in the database directly?
not OP but likely:
1) coding via repl - e.g. one emacs buffer has stored procedure code, send functions over via keyboard shortcut to SQL repl buffer connected to DB to evaluate it 'live' (jupyter notebooks are basically a copy of this mode of operation in a more consumer-friendly package)
2) w/r/t python in db, as OP mentions pgsql, pgsql has support for in-db extensibility using a variety of languages, of which python is one: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/plpython.html probably referring to this
Re: What Happened to Lee
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m sure he did a great job, but I’ve seen those things be a huge nightmare for anyone other than the irreplaceable genius code wizard who created them.
I guess you're using the word genius ironically, but I've also seen such things be radical in the sense that they're built in a way that no one else would have done, yet it ends up working perfectly for the business and being far more successful than anyone would have predicted. There's a certain type of mind that is immune to fashionable or normal technical choices, that often goes along with remarkable productivity…
and in fact I would say that the case of PG and YC have this in common with the case of Lee and Cloudflare as John describes it—as remote from one another that Postgres procedures and custom Lisps may be in every other respect.
Oh, you reminded me of something fun. I had a lot of freedom under Lee when I first joined Cloudflare (that's partly how Cloudflare became a Go user) and one of my first jobs was writing a new WAF service... I made an entire working version in Arc. I almost made all our customers write rules using it.
Re: What Happened to Lee
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a journeyman in this space, and don't know emacs well. Can you help me unpack your comment here? You write python in the database directly?
not OP but likely: 1) coding via repl - e.g. one emacs buffer has stored procedure code, send functions over via keyboard shortcut to SQL repl buffer connected to DB to evaluate it 'live' (jupyter notebooks are basically a copy of this mode of operation in a more consumer-friendly package) 2) w/r/t python in db, as OP mentions pgsql, pgsql has support for in-db extensibility using a variety of languages, of which pyt…
Thanks!
Re: What Happened to Lee
#180Terrifying. As a software engineer, shit like this scares me. I've felt like I'm on a steady, slow, decline for the last ~4 years. Is it just burnout? Do I need a new hobby? I used to love programming... Spent 12 hours a day jamming on it. Now, I struggle to keep my mind on a line of code for more than 5 minutes. At what point is it just burnout, or at what point is it something more? That's what's terrifying to me.…
After reading this I had to do a quick self-assessment. For the last few years or so (I'm 33, also a software engineer) I've noticed a pretty big decline in my mental state. I can't focus. I immediately forget what I just looked at, read or did. I completely zone out when people talk to me. I am just not present in any situation. What is strange is that I can actually notice it, not in real-time however. It's been wo…
This is very similar to my situation, although I'm a bit younger. I've tried therapy and she recommending getting back on ADHD medication and experimenting with that. Haven't gone ahead with it.