What Happened to Lee

This is horrifying.

Conversations soon became impossible. Lee started chattering in repetitive, unceasing loops. He would tell Kristin: “We met at Cloudflare. We got engaged in Rome. We got married in Maui, Hawaii.” He repeated it hundreds of times a day. Then the loops got shorter, more cryptic. He spoke fewer sentences, instead muttering sequences of numbers or letters.

At the same time, given the flashes of lucidity pointed out in this article, you have to wonder if others talking about his condition so much might make him feel like a walking corpse when those hit.

It was incredibly sad to watch. The last time I saw him while he was still speaking — he is still alive but doesn’t speak or seem to recognize me anymore — he would repeat the same questions from the same conversation in the same order on a 30-minute loop. Over and over.

I’ve really struggled to wrap my mind around his condition. I don’t think it’s frustrating for him. He seems to have lost the emotion to be frustrated.

I think we all have a sense of Alzheimer’s because we’ve all forgotten something. This isn’t that. Lee’s memory, if anything, seemed to improve and he’d bring up little details from when we first worked together I’d long since forgotten. What seemed to go away was his ability to process those memories into something more.

It’s hard to imagine losing the ability to imagine. And, as his friend and colleague, it was incredibly frustrating when we just thought he was checked out. And then devastating when we learned all this time he’d actually had a disease.

I do wonder if some of his genius came from his ability to shut down some of the other noise in his life. And if the disease, for some time before it became debilitating, was almost a superpower. I’ve never met an engineer like him.

I miss him every day.

I'm sorry for the loss you and his other friends/loved ones have experienced.

Do you feel like the article was accurate and fair to the people involved?

Yes. Very. It was important to me and Michelle that it be a tribute to Lee’s genius and contribution to Cloudflare. We spent a long time looking for the right reporter and publication. Wired seemed appropriate given Lee’s love of technology. And Sandra was a total class act. We opened up fully to her, spending nearly a year letting her get to know us. Lee’s family was incredibly giving of their time. It takes a really talented and empathetic writer to have people feel safe and to open up to such a personal story like they did.

I got the advance copy of the article last night and it’s been an emotional 12 hours reliving a lot of the last 18 years I’ve known Lee. But I’m happy we helped create something Lee’s two sons will be able to read and see a little bit of what an incredible person their dad was.