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What Happened to Lee

(wired.com)
1298 points jgrahamc | 2 comments | 15 Apr 20 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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thephyber ◴[16 Apr 20 00:13 UTC] No.22884715[source]▶
Sandra 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...

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1. eastdakota ◴[16 Apr 20 01:08 UTC] No.22885083[source]▶
One story that didn't make it the article:

In September, after we'd released our S-1 but before Cloudflare's IPO, I took two weeks off and went back to my home town of Park City, Utah. (It's actually where Lee and I had been roommates many years before.) That two week period before you go public is known as the quiet period, so I was generally avoiding social media or answering my phone or doing anything other than resting and getting ready for the pre-IPO road show.

We hadn't talked much publicly about Lee's disease, but Michelle and I had written a bit about it in the S-1 Founders Letter:

"Finally, there are two of us signing this letter today, but three people started Cloudflare. Lee Holloway is our third co-founder and the genius who architected our platform and recruited and led our early technical team. Tragically, Lee stepped down from Cloudflare in 2016, suffering the debilitating effects of Frontotemporal Dementia, a rare neurological disease. As we began the confidential process to go public, one of the early decisions was to pick the code name for our IPO. We chose 'Project Holloway' to honor Lee’s contribution. More importantly, on a daily basis, the technical decisions Lee made, and the engineering team he built, are fundamental to the business we have become."

One evening my phone rang and the called ID came up as "Lee Holloway." I checked the number and it was his. I didn't answer and the caller didn't leave a voicemail. My first reaction was that somehow his phone had been hacked or his number was being spoofed and someone was using it to somehow screw with me. Figured someone had read about his disease in the S-1 and was being a jerk.

I reported the call to Cloudflare's security team to investigate. I also texted Lee's wife to let her know to be on the lookout. She wrote back: "No, that's Lee. Sometimes I think when he's feeling nostalgic he reaches out to old friends. He never says anything, but I think it's his way to let you know he's thinking about you."

So I still shoot him text messages from time to time to let him know I'm thinking about him. And I hope, somewhere inside his mind, there's a part of him that still knows that.

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2. pico303 ◴[16 Apr 20 07:06 UTC] No.22886902[source]▶
This Wired piece was amazing: full of sadness, humanity, and hope. One thing that really stood out to me was how incredible the people around Lee are. You all really care for him, and that says a lot about the type of person he is, even in the midst of this disease and the toll it must be taking on all of you.

Cloudflare is a great platform, and I'm glad, thanks to Ms. Upson, I got to know one of the folks responsible for it a little bit. I'll be sure to keep chasing the hard problems in my own day-to-day code, and keep a thought for Lee while I do it.