morning of November 12. The night before had been November 11. Of the year 2011. Ever the math nerd, the theory goes, Zhitomirskiy might have found some poetic delight in departing this earth when the clock hit 11:11 11/11/11.
The truth, of course, died with Zhitomirskiy, and
his cofounders, who might come closest to knowing what happened, did not respond to requests for interviews. It’s
“We are very accepting in Silicon Valley of career
failures and decisions that were made incorrectly if the
worth noting that Diaspora is not the failure many assume;
founder can be, like, ‘I figured everything out. I’ve got
donors happily contributed $45,000 on PayPal after the
it under control.’ We as a culture love that,” Phillipps
Kickstarter money ran out, the beta launch is still in the
says. “But we don’t know what to do with a founder who’s
works, and top-flight VCs have been sniffing around. With
depressed or who says, ‘I’m really confused.’ Our response
Facebook’s continuing success and huge IPO (“Zuckerberg…
to that is, ‘Figure your shit out.’ Even before the diaspora
has created a wholly owned Internet,” one writer put it),
tragedy, momentum was building for a healthier, more open
the hunger for an alternative will only grow.
and compassionate approach. Last April, Ben Horowitz, a
former entrepreneur and a cofounder of the vaunted VC
“busted open a door on this conversation.” It’s time for
firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote a widely read post on the
the tech community to start recognizing the hallmarks
emotional challenges of being a tech leader, admitting,
of mental illness and extreme distress, she says. And
“By far the most difficult skill for me to learn as CEO
it’s time for Silicon Valley to jettison one of its most
was to manage my own psychology.” Phillipps’s FailCon
cherished ideas, one she calls the Mark Zuckerberg problem:
idea dates back to when she and her cofounders couldn’t
“The myth of the single perfect hero who gets it right is
figure out what they were doing wrong, and the events
bullshit.” Fraser says all founders need to have someone
they attended—mostly whiz kids talking about their
they can be completely candid with. She has played that
successes—offered no insight. Though much of FailCon’s
role for some entrepreneurs, including one very successful
focus is on impersonal issues like hiring and growth, “by
founder she’s advising, whose startup has done quite
signing up for a conference that says you have [failed],
well by Valley standards. “I came in one day, and they
or you are going to fail, you walk in with a slightly
got teary,” Fraser says. “They said, ‘I don’t know how
more exposed mindset,” Phillipps says. “It’s beginning to
I’m going to cope.’ So we just laid it all out. We did an
change the tone of the conversation between founders.”
hour’s worth of work organizing the stuff on their plate.”
One of the most valuable things about the pro
What matters now, says Fraser, is that his death
FailCon’s Phillipps goes even further. “To
liferation of startup incubators around the Valley is
raise VC money, you need an advisory board,” she says.
the way they allow, or force, these kinds of conver
“It would be so cool if every startup was also required
sations to happen—and youthful poses to be dropped.
to have an emotional adviser, someone who could give
WePay’s Aberman says an emotional turning point was
psychological support when the founders are in trouble.”
getting accepted into Y Combinator, whose cofounder
Paul Graham talks about “the trough of sorrow” as an
who aren’t running startups but who are caught up in the
almost inevitable phase of a startup’s growth. While Y
frenzy and ferocity of the tech economy just the same? One
Combinator doesn’t have an explicitly emotional component
night last December, 25 such men and women, ranging in age
to its curriculum, the incubator approach—a number of startups per “class,” with 150 or so other young geeks to lean on and commiserate with as they try to get their companies off the ground—inherently addresses the psychological strains of entrepreneurship, Graham
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and his partners believe, and Aberman concurs. “At
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from their 20s to their 50s, shuffled into a conference room at No Starch Press in SoMa. They were responding to an invitation from Mitch Altman, cofounder of Noisebridge, the beginning of our class, you’d ask people how their
the Mission hacker space that provides geeks (including
start up was going, and they’d be like, ‘Excellent, great,
the Diaspora guys) the infrastructure and support to
super,’” he says. “But a few weeks in, you’d ask the same
explore their passions and bring their ideas to fruition.
question, and they’d say, ‘We’re so screwed.’ It made us
Altman, who battled serious depression for the first
realize we weren’t doing any worse than anyone else.”
half of his life, had been deeply upset by Zhitomirskiy’s
death. He decided to convene the meetup after getting
Yet sometimes even having that kind of support
isn’t enough. Among Zhitomirskiy’s friends and colleagues,
more than 100 responses to a blog post he’d written about
there are different theories about what led him to take
his own struggles. “So many people expressed how thankful
his own life. One possible trigger, of course, may have
they were that someone was openly talking about this,”
been his despair over the project’s problems and the
he says. “We need to create an environment where people
way its idealistic goals were being subverted by the
feel it’s totally OK and natural to talk about feeling
likes of Google. “He thought Google+ was a knockoff,”
depressed, even suicidal. Then people may not feel they
says a fellow entrepreneur—one that had replicated
need to hide, and maybe they can reach out for help.”
some of Diaspora’s features (or so it appeared), but
hadn’t embraced the underlying idea of giving people
meetup has turned into a regular gathering, and similar
control over their data. “He was feeling upset about
events are starting to bubble up around the world.
that in October and November,” the friend says.
At a recent conference in Berlin, organizers asked
Altman to throw together a panel on the topic, and
Others note that Zhitomirskiy suffered from
Four months later, the “Geeks & Depression”
serious psychological issues that might have proved
he’s planning another for the annual HOPE (Hackers on
crippling no matter what happened at Diaspora. “Ilya had
Planet Earth) conference in New York this summer.
a bipolar disorder,” says Janice Fraser, the former head
of Adaptive Path, cofounder-CEO of the LUXr incubator
the new willingness among geeks to bare their souls
and an adviser to the Diaspora crew since they joined
in public. For all their vulnerability, Fraser sees an
LUXr’s inaugural class in the summer of 2010. But
emotional upside in the fact that today’s entrepreneurs
sometime before his death, she says, Zhitomirskiy had
are so young. “The kids who are coming up today are more
decided to stop taking his medication. That’s common,
courageous,” she says. “This is a generation of people
adds Fraser, who suffers from depression herself and
who are used to letting it all hang out on Facebook.
who’s seen several other members of her family grapple
So if I say, ‘Talk to me about mental illness in your
with mental illness, including a brother who committed
life,’ probably somebody would tell me their story.
suicide. She says Zhitomirskiy seems to have planned his
And that’s really different than 10 years ago.”
What’s striking to Silicon Valley veterans is
suicide, perhaps scouring the Internet for guidance. While Diaspora’s stresses may have aggravated his condition, Fraser believes his decision was based more on realizing what it would mean to have to live with his illness— how it would affect his capacity to think and enjoy life. That wasn’t something he wanted, she believes.
It’s even possible to see significance in the
date of his death. Zhitomirskiy was found early on the
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And what about all the other geeks—the ones
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