Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#101

Post by bqe » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:24 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #76

papasmrf wrote: post #49

Of course we dont know why he died but I echo the sentiment that you need to be getting annual physicals and blood work to catch potential issues sooner rather than later. A few years ago a nurse told me my blood pressure was a bit high but I didnt think it was that high to worry about so I never followed up on it. Then a few months ago I went for a dental check up where they checked my blood pressure and after a par…

What are the side effects of your blood pressure medicine? Do you regularly exercise? Meditate? Have you looked into treating blood pressure other ways than a pill? Knowing something (blood pressure is high) is cool.. but turning that into (I must pop pill X) doesn't always seem like the best strategy.

Many modern blood pressure medicines have almost no side effects for the gross majority of those taking them. I had a very similar experience to the person you're replying to.

I am active, eat healthy, and have tried to go off of my high blood pressure meds more than once, but each time, my blood pressure creeps back up. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. Don't be scared of medicine when it's the right option.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#102

Post by beachstartup » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:24 PM UTC

pen2l wrote: post #100

goodJobWalrus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mo Koyfman, a VC, tweeted that it is likely a heart attack. https://twitter.com/mokoyfman/status/594549389340876801

I know of 2 guys who had a case of "sudden death" in the valley, both from heart attack, both were using stimulants and working very long hours in their startups. I know from previous threads that a lot of folks in the valley use stimulants to get through nights without sleep, to work with high focus, but guys you have to be careful. Stimulant use aside, keep in mind cardiovascular diseases is one of _the_ bigger kil…

uhm, by all accounts (especially the video in this thread where he says as much) this guy was far past the working-long-hours phase - the company was mature and he stressed work life balance. i think mentioning stimulant abuse here is a little ... shitty of you, to be honest.

some people just die young/young-ish of natural causes. i personally know several people who have had freak heart attacks or brain conditions and passed away. it's sad, but a fact of life (and death).

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#103

Post by jsprogrammer » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #102

pen2l wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of 2 guys who had a case of "sudden death" in the valley, both from heart attack, both were using stimulants and working very long hours in their startups. I know from previous threads that a lot of folks in the valley use stimulants to get through nights without sleep, to work with high focus, but guys you have to be careful. Stimulant use aside, keep in mind cardiovascular diseases is one of _the_ bigger kil…

uhm, by all accounts (especially the video in this thread where he says as much) this guy was far past the working-long-hours phase - the company was mature and he stressed work life balance. i think mentioning stimulant abuse here is a little ... shitty of you, to be honest. some people just die young/young-ish of natural causes. i personally know several people who have had freak heart attacks or brain conditions a…

Generally places stress work life balance because the organization doesn't actually afford its members a work life balance, so the perception of it existing has to be constructed through propaganda.

i.e. If you already have work life balance, there's not need to stress it.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#104

Post by mreiland » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:32 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #102

pen2l wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of 2 guys who had a case of "sudden death" in the valley, both from heart attack, both were using stimulants and working very long hours in their startups. I know from previous threads that a lot of folks in the valley use stimulants to get through nights without sleep, to work with high focus, but guys you have to be careful. Stimulant use aside, keep in mind cardiovascular diseases is one of _the_ bigger kil…

uhm, by all accounts (especially the video in this thread where he says as much) this guy was far past the working-long-hours phase - the company was mature and he stressed work life balance. i think mentioning stimulant abuse here is a little ... shitty of you, to be honest. some people just die young/young-ish of natural causes. i personally know several people who have had freak heart attacks or brain conditions a…

why is it shitty? I didn't take it as him implying that's how the CEO died, just that it's an issue that happens a lot in silicon valley and it's dangerous because you can die unexpectedly due to a heart attack.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#105

Post by coldtea » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:39 PM UTC

brookside wrote: post #94

coldtea wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you mean by comprehensive health check? What tests should I do? Start by NOT asking random people on the internet. Ask your doctor about what tests to do and he'll tell you based on your age / history, and you can trust him better than a random stranger or some web post.

Hacker news is a community of (from what I've seen) strong critical thinkers, with a poster in a thread often having a specific background in the field being discussed. Doctors aren't mythical beings, and discourse here about what medical tests are 'worth it' seems both appropriate and really interesting.

>Hacker news is a community of (from what I've seen) strong critical thinkers

If I met a community of strong critical thinkers about Chemistry or Civic Engineering I wouldn't ask them advice for my software stack.

Besides, with the exception of a 20% or less who knows what they're talking about (and those only for narrow Computer Science or Engineering fields each), the others might as well be on Reddit. You can find tons of uninformed opinion about anything here. Plus a huge tendency to go with the latest fads (Rails, then JS, then Go, then Rust, etc).

>Doctors aren't mythical beings

No, just trained professionals.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#106

Post by pen2l » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:49 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #102

pen2l wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of 2 guys who had a case of "sudden death" in the valley, both from heart attack, both were using stimulants and working very long hours in their startups. I know from previous threads that a lot of folks in the valley use stimulants to get through nights without sleep, to work with high focus, but guys you have to be careful. Stimulant use aside, keep in mind cardiovascular diseases is one of _the_ bigger kil…

uhm, by all accounts (especially the video in this thread where he says as much) this guy was far past the working-long-hours phase - the company was mature and he stressed work life balance. i think mentioning stimulant abuse here is a little ... shitty of you, to be honest. some people just die young/young-ish of natural causes. i personally know several people who have had freak heart attacks or brain conditions a…

Oh no, sorry, I did not mean to imply it was stimulant abuse. But you know even normal use of stimulants is a sudden killer for some people with cardiovascular problems. I mentioned it mainly because I've read many threads on HN indicating that stimulant usage is kind of high in this field... and that's fine, as it's prescribed to folks with disorders like ADHD. You just have to be very careful with it though, because again, cardiovascular diseases are one of the biggest killers. Easiest way to prevent is to eat healthy and exercise, it's really as simple as that.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#107

Post by jacquesm » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:53 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #62

CatDevURandom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My spouse -- an md -- cringed a bit when I read your post. And not because it's not well meaning, or important, but because without qualifying what "comprehensive health check" means, that check could very well do you more harm than good. So, yes. Please find a good primary care physician you trust and visit on an annual basis. Make sure you update that phsyician with what's going on in your life. That includes any f…

Short-term point sampling can do you more harm than good—this is as true in medicine as it is in investing. There's nothing wrong with getting an MRI every year if you aren't actually looking at it on its own, but rather diffing it in a time-series, and extracting chartable statistics from it, to see if anything in your body is getting progressively [adjective]er each year. This approach won't actually tell you if yo…

You are tying up an MRI machine that might be put to better use.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#108

Post by andyfleming » Sat, May 02, 2015, 10:54 PM UTC

Does hacker news still do the black bar to honor people in the community who have passed away?

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#109

Post by joelberman » Sat, May 02, 2015, 11:16 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #74

shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

Flip side - Many doctors will see a high cholesterol number and immediately try to put you on statins. Which is not really that clear cut, statins have a lot of side effects that are downplayed by the sellers - and a lot less potential upside in otherwise healthy people with high cholesterol (because the fundamental cholesterol test given is flawed, the better tests are more expensive and harder to read (variables li…

Another story. mid 50's, reasonably active and healthy, start to develop BHP (slow stream). Urologist does a PSA test even though I had one a few months before. Long story short, prostate cancer. Had robotic surgery, all good.

67, been following a congenital heart murmur for years. Cholesterol at 130. Noticed my running and biking dropping performance dropping off, so think time for a heart valve replacement. Routine pre-op catheterization shows coronary artery blockage. Have bypass and valve replacement, doing great. But 130 was too much cholesterol for me apparently. On statins and down to 95! I am now 68, no prostate, artificial heart valve, bypassed coronary artery, but feel great and am still active.

Glad the heart surgery took place after I started medicare though. Say want you want about government ineptitude administering anything, but medicare works.

Re: Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, has died

#110

Post by salgernon » Sat, May 02, 2015, 11:17 PM UTC

CatDevURandom wrote: post #41

shabda wrote: post #16

I will take this time to write something I wrote on Steve Jobs death: go get a comprehensive health check today. In our community, we are data driven about everything, except our health and body. I will copy what I wrote 1304 days ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3080327 In January 2009 I was Stage 5 chronic kidney disease, in July 2009 I had a kidney transplant. Looking back there were so many telltale sign…

My spouse -- an md -- cringed a bit when I read your post. And not because it's not well meaning, or important, but because without qualifying what "comprehensive health check" means, that check could very well do you more harm than good. So, yes. Please find a good primary care physician you trust and visit on an annual basis. Make sure you update that phsyician with what's going on in your life. That includes any f…

I went to the urgent care when I had what I thought was hemmoroids - the urgen care doctor hadn't seen anything quick like what she saw and sent me for a colonoscopy. Normally "they" recommend starting periodic colonoscopies at 50.

When the procedure was finished, I was told they would analyze the result, but I had a cancerous tumor and they sent me for a CT scan which confirmed stage iv colon cancer with liver metastasis. I'm now 8 months into chemo and after having my sigmoid colon removed, seem to have "stable disease" in my liver. I was otherwise asymptomatic.

Another chap at my company wasn't so lucky. He got hit by a car and lost consciousness. They did an MRI to check out his brain - and found tumors. A CT scan showed the same don't diagnosis as me, but his was far more advanced, with mean mastastasasis to the liver, lungs and brain. He passed away about 5 months later and was otherwise asymptomatic.

In both our cases, A blood test given after the diagnosis (CEA) showed highly elevated numbers - perhaps two orders of magnitude from nominal.

So my question would be: given that this blood test was a marker for our disease, why can't it be given more regularly as part of a routine checkup? I realize there are other reasons for a false positive, but couldn't it be an indication that further testing should be done? Yes a CT scan can cost $1500, but my chemo costs $12,000 per month.