We'll miss you, Ilya. Thanks for your guidance and friendship.
Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
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Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#32What 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 an…
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.
> The more awareness of suicide
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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#33What 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 an…
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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#34The 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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#35What 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 an…
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.
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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#36The 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 no…
Wow, this strikes me as a really tone-deaf response to this news, especially considering that Diaspora is alive, kicking, and growing.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#37There 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 ex…
> Take a moment to talk to the people you love to make sure something like this doesn't happen to them.
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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#38The 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 no…
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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#39The 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 no…
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.
Re: Diaspora Co-Founder Ilya Zhitomirskiy Passes Away At 21
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no point to speculating. If they don't want to say just leave it at that.
it's basic human nature to speculate that's why the news of Michael Jackson's death caused Twitter and even Google to crash
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.