In Memoriam - Phil Goldman
Phil Goldman was a pioneer. While I never had the pleasure of making his acquaintance directly, I had plans to have him appear as a guest on my weekly radio show to talk about his latest project - the Mailblocks service - after the first of the year. Sadly, that meeting will not take place.
Phil died suddenly on Christmas Day. His spirit of innovation will be sorely missed. In the extended portion of this post I'm including, verbatim, a far better and more moving eulogy to Phil than I could ever hope to write from the current DEMOLetter by Chris Shipley.
Update: Mailblocks has posted a tribute page to Phil.
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IN MEMORIAM: PHIL GOLDMAN, INVENTOR, PIONEER, PASSIONATE MAN
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A week before Christmas I sat across the table from Phil Goldman, CEO of Mailblocks, and listened as he talked excitedly about the great progress his company had made in the last nine months. New subscribers were growing at a rate of 5 percent a week. Customers scored 95 percent satisfaction with the Web-based email service. Mailblocks had achieved its goal of eliminating spam from customer inboxes.
But what really got Phil excited was the products yet to come - and this year, unlike last, he'd be ready to launch them at DEMO. I left his office sharing his excitement for the new technology, wishing him happy holidays, and promising that we'd see each other in February.
This is not to be. Sometime during the night of December 25, Phil died quietly and unexpectedly of natural causes. Those who knew him are shocked and devastated.
At only 39, Phil leaves a legacy of those with twice his lifespan. Before founding Mailblocks a little more than a year ago, Phil was a founder and led the engineering efforts of WebTV. After the company was sold to Microsoft, he built the Microsoft TV business and drove the effort to build the world's largest ISP
for television.
At General Magic, Phil was responsible for building the first personal communicator, the Sony MagicLink. At Apple Computer, he did groundbreaking work on the multitasking and virtual memory components of the Mac OS.
He authored 19 patents, and has more than 30 patents pending. He served as chair of Princeton's Computer Science Advisory Council.
This was his curriculum vitae, but certainly not his life. Phil had a passion for invention, for making technology simple so that anyone could enjoy its benefits. He had a passion for people. His electric eyes and bright smile were disarming. In his comfortable manner, friendship was immediately offered and accepted. And he had a passion for children. His own, of course; he leaves behind
two young children. And, also kids who are living with chronic illnesses and disabilities. Phil served on the board of BraveKids, a resource for parents and children with special needs.
In the short time since Phil founded Mailblocks, he built a strong company, and he leaves it in very capable hands. Mailblocks will continue operations, led by the strong executive management team of VP of Sales and Marketing Susan Bratton, Vice President of Engineering Rich Landsman, and Vice President of
Network Operations Phil Steffora. The company plans to continue with its release of a new version of the Mailblocks service.
Mailblocks - among so many inventions and people and, especially, his children and the children he touched - will be Phil's legacy.
Lawrence Lessig shares this post about Phil:
Phil Goldman has died. The not-yet-40 former Apple software engineer, co-founder of WebTV, and CEO of Mailblocks, died unexpectedly the day after Christmas. I had only met Goldman by email. After a critical comment about Mailblocks on this blog, he wrote and we began a conversation, now cut short. When I told a friend about Goldman?s direct and honest responses to my criticism of his company, the friend said, ?That?s Phil.? Or so it was, and so should we all be.
Goldman served on the board of Brave Kids, and his family has asked that contributions be made to it.