d
s
a
i
r
d o
F
T
k
B
h o
e o
M
Diaspora was supposed to be the “Facebook killer.” Then 22-year-old cofounder Ilya Zhitomirskiy committed suicide. E.B. Boyd reports on how his death has touched a nerve in Silicon Valley – and forced one of its biggest secrets out in the open.
i m a g e s b y
G A B r I E L A H A S B U N
e
w w w.g a b r i e l a h a s b u n.c o m
New York magazine and the New York Times. IEEE Spectrum,
personal privacy in the Facebook-Google era. They emerged
a respected technology magazine, got a look at an early
from the auditorium determined to save the world. Their
version of Diaspora’s software and deemed it “vacant”
weapon would be Diaspora, a new kind of open-source
and “amateur.” That same month, Google unveiled its
social network that would protect private information by
own curiously Diaspora-like social network. Soon the
replacing a single corporate behemoth with a so-called
Kickstarter money ran out amid questions about how it
federation of pods. Users could join whatever pod they
had been spent, and, without explanation, PayPal briefly
wanted, and if they didn’t like how they were being treated
froze the account the partners were using to raise more
at that one, they could pick up their personal data and
funds. Then in October, on the eve of the planned beta
move somewhere else. Deep human connection without the
launch, one of the startup’s key players abruptly quit.
Big Brother overtones—that was the utopian promise.
twice the age of the Diaspora founders, never mind kids
The students figured they’d need a few months and
All of which would have been hard on entrepreneurs
$10,000 to build a prototype. But Facebook had just made a
barely out of their teens with little experience to steel
huge misstep—a series of features that seemed to imperil
them against the startup life’s inevitable pressures and
users’ privacy to a stunning degree. As outrage ricocheted
setbacks. “They had failed. Publicly,” wrote a comment-
around the web, Diaspora went from being an intriguing
er on Hacker News, the forum of the tech incubator Y
but untested concept to the media-proclaimed “Facebook
Combinator. “This can be very devastating psychologi-
killer,” and the money started rolling in. The NYU students
cally to someone who has always succeeded in life.”
ended up with 20 times more than they had sought in their
fundraising appeal on Kickstarter—even Mark Zuckerberg
Zhitomirskiy’s death focused on the depression that
made a contribution. “I think it is a cool idea,” he
frequently accompanies startup stress, and some speculated
told Wired. “I see a little of myself in [those guys].”
that this may have been a factor in his suicide. “I met
this kid [Zhitomirskiy] at a half way to halloween party
In the Hollywood version of the story, the four
Indeed, a lot of the chatter following
friends would’ve holed up in their dorm rooms banging
at NYC Resistor,” a Valleywag commenter wrote. “He was
out code until they’d created a site that lived up to
sharp and passionate but had a glassy eye look I know
the hype. They would’ve become famous and, despite
my self from my own hypo mania / depression [sic].”
their professed indifference to money, fabulously rich—
worthy, perhaps, of an Aaron Sorkin sequel. In the un
of symbol for the tech community—not just the anti-
forgiving environment of the newly booming Silicon
Facebook but a reminder of the emotional impact of
Valley, though, the reality was far more grueling, dis
the New Boom on the very young, and potentially very
heartening—and, ultimately, tragic. Last November, some
vulnerable, entrepreneurs at the center of it.
18 months after moving to San Francisco with his three
cofounders, 22-year-old math whiz Ilya Zhitomirskiy was
failure—that a willingness in the culture to take huge
found dead in his Mission home, an apparent suicide.
risks and learn from mistakes is why great innovations
happen there. You can crash and burn in the Valley, the
Of the Diaspora founders, the sweet-faced
Suddenly, Diaspora had become a new sort
Silicon Valley likes to say that it celebrates
Zhitomirskiy had seemed to be the most optimistic and
lore goes, and still have venture capitalists lining up
idealistic. A unicyclist and ballroom dancer whose
to fund your next company; there are plenty of people
family had emigrated from Russia when he was a child,
who even insist that you haven’t really earned your
he was fascinated by artificial intelligence and by
entrepreneur stripes until you’ve failed at least once.
technology as a powerful agent for good. Cheerful and
outgoing, he threw epic parties and had an uncanny
record of success and a wide network of contacts; it’s
ability to connect with complete strangers, whom he
quite another when you’re 22, just out of college, far
would often keep up late into the night, talking about
from your family and friends, and completely green.
his dreams of making the world a better, freer, place.
Or maybe, egged on by self-proclaimed disrupters like
“There’s something deeper than making money off stuff,”
investor Peter Thiel, you’re one of those high school
he told an interviewer back in 2010. “Being a part
geeks who didn’t even bother with college. Maybe you
of creating stuff for the universe is awesome.”
have a condition—Asperger’s syndrome, say, or bipolar
disorder—that makes you well suited to the intellectual
But for Diaspora, as for most startups, the
But failure is one thing when you have a track
challenges proved daunting. There were long hours at the
and creative challenges of the tech life but also makes
keyboard, frustrating meetings with potential investors,
it much harder for you to cope when adversity strikes.
page 3
w w w.g a b r i e l a h a s b u n.c o m
I S S U E — # 1
and sniping from bloggers about the gushy treatment from
students went to a lecture about the growing threats to
I S S U E — # 1
page 2
One winter night in 2010, four New York University
burning through. While some entrepreneurs say that the Valley’s top VCs can be a founder’s best source of support,
cofounder of the online-payments company WePay. Today,
taking funds from angels or investors who can’t afford
WePay—which offers individuals and small organizations
a loss, or who aren’t willing or able to help a startup
simple, user-friendly ways to collect money and sell
through the inevitable rough patches, can be a huge
goods—looks like a Silicon Valley success story, with
liability. “The ones who give you money and walk away
nearly $10 million in funding from the likes of PayPal’s
aren’t in the trenches with you,” says Ben Huh, founder
Max Levchin. But the first year, when Aberman was 23
of the humor site I Can Haz Cheezburger. “When things
and the startup was struggling, was harrowing.
start going south, it can feel like they’re putting more
pressure on you rather than helping you find a way out.”
The idea for WePay began when Aberman was
trying to arrange a bachelor party in 2008—14 guys
spread across the country, $4,200 in expenses, and no
secting every angle of startup success has been remark
efficient way for the group to collect and distribute
ably close-mouthed about the emotional vulnerability of
the money. Seeing an exciting opportunity, he and a
its workforce and the psychic toll of the entrepreneurial
college pal, Bill Clerico, put their respective plans
process. The result, noted a Valleywag commenter, is that
for law school and Wall Street on hold. Aberman was
people who are hurting believe “it’s just me who is weird
inspired by a 2006 BusinessWeek cover story about Digg
and sick.” “Oftentimes, my clients do not tell anyone
founder Kevin Rose (“How This Kid Made $60 Million in
in their lives that they’re seeking psychotherapy,” says
18 Months”). “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, all he did was
Dr. Sarah Villarreal, a psychologist who counts founders
come up with a great idea, and he built it, and he made a
among her Silicon Valley clientele. “That exacerbates
ton of money,’” Aberman says. “‘That’s not that hard.’”
the feeling that they’re alone in their struggles.”
Only afterward did it occur to Aberman that he
Yet the industry that makes a fetish of dis
After Zhitomirskiy’s death, Ben Huh decided to
didn’t know how to code: “You spend three weeks learning
break the silence, blogging about contemplating suicide
how to program, and you realize it’s going to take you
back in 2001, when his former company was floundering.
another 10 years to get good enough to build something
“Loneliness, darkness, hopelessness…those words don’t
saleable.” He and Clerico had no idea how to catch the
capture the feeling of the profound self-doubt that sets
interest of VCs or the media, either, but they had
in after a failure,” he wrote. Such despair can be so
already gone all in—failure was not an option. “It’s
debilitating that it “makes you question if you should
impossible for you to draw a bridge from where you are
even exist anymore. I spent a week in my room with the
now to where you’ve made promises about where you’re
lights off…thinking of the best way to exit this failure.
going to go,” Aberman says. “That feeling leads you to
Death was a good option—and it got better by the day.”
paralysis.” Suicide, he says, can seem like “an escape.”
scheduled to speak at two conferences. “Almost everyone
The tendency of entrepreneurs to overidentify
The post went up shortly before Huh was
with their company compounds the pain of failure, says Cass
I met had read it,” he says—but they were only willing
Phillipps, a veteran of a doomed startup who now organizes
to admit that in private. “Maybe three of us would
the FailCon conferences, which analyze how companies go
be having a normal conversation and one person would
wrong. Halfway through her own startup’s first year, it
leave, and the other one would say, ‘By the way, I read
was clear the idea—a plan to aggregate conversations in
your post. And I know what you’re talking about.’”
online forums—wasn’t working, but one of the partners
resisted the decision to shut down. “He felt like his
for all the abstract idealization of failure, the real
personal worth was being judged by our startup’s value.”
thing makes Silicon Valley deeply uncomfortable. “I
have to act as if I’m going to take over the world,
The tech-blog culture, with its breathless
Entrepreneurs are left with the feeling that,
coverage of fundings and launches and its tendency to
even if inside I’m struggling,” says an entrepreneur
ignore promising ideas that bomb (except to viciously
in his late 30s who founded a startup two years ago
tear them apart), can amplify the pressures and feed
and this winter considered shutting it down.
the insecurities. Then there’s the terror of having to concede defeat to the people whose money you’ve been
From left to right, Diaspora co-founders, Ilya Zhitomirsky, Daniel Grippi, Rafael Sofaer, Maxwell Salzberg
page 4
page 5
w w w.g a b r i e l a h a s b u n.c o m
I S S U E — # 1
If anything, the myth of the young geek
genius sets people up for failure, says Rich Aberman,
I S S U E — # 1
w w w.g a b r i e l a h a s b u n.c o m
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
I S S U E — # 1
and his partners believe, and Aberman concurs. “At
w w w.g a b r i e l a h a s b u n.c o m
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
page 6
And what about all the other geeks—the ones
I S S U E — # 1
w w w.g a b r i e l a h a s b u n.c o m
page 7
G A B r I E L A H A S B U N 77 Athens St. · San Francisco · CA 94112
photography: Gabriela Hasbun, story: E.B. Boyd, photo editor: Randi Klett, layout & design: Julian Weidenthaler Images originally shot for IEEE Spectrum, story published in San Francisco Magazine on February 17, 2012
I S S U E — # 1 D a r k s i d e o f t h e b o o m
www.gabrielahasbun.com
Pre-Sorted Standard U.S. Postage PAID San Francisco Permit No. 7880