I really shocked and really saddened by this, I spoke to Greg just a few weeks ago. He had contacted me after seeing our startup featured in TWiST.
He was a smart, genuine guy that really cared about helping us. From what I'd picked up he was a close friend to Elon Musk and had backed him @ zip2, paypal, tesla and space x.
He gave us some great advice, and took a lot of time out to make intro's and give us feedback.
As somebody who has a complicated relationship with a well known startup's founding, it's tricky to explain sometimes. Important and early roles are held by many, the title founder is tricky and often contested. What's worse the media usually has incentive to make everybody in to a 'founder'.
Looks like he was the friend who founded Zip2 along with Kimbal and Elon Musk. He probably went on and coinvested with Kimbal in Elon's later companies. This is assuming his angel list profile is correct. The founder title is probably a mix up - looks like he was just an early PayPal investor.
Looks like Kouri is curiously little-mentioned prior to this obituary (at least, on the internet and in a quick news-archive search). Seems to have kept a low profile. The only thing anyone says about him is about one sentence worth: that he co-founded Zip2, is a Musk friend, and an investor in Musk's later ventures. No further bio, no interviews, nothing else I can find. I assume reporters have tried to contact him over the years, so I'd guess that he just didn't want publicity.
Very strange: I always thought that PayPal had only two co-founders (I know them personally): Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, and X.com that was merged with PayPal had only one founder, Elon Musk?
Correct, Max and Peter founded Confinity, Elon founded X.com. The two companies merged and those three are considered PayPal's three co-founders. The HN headline is inaccurate and in fact the linked article's headline is correct: "Gregory Anthony Kouri, early PayPal investor, dies at 51". So just a bad submission.
Not sure I fully understand his wife's comment about him not wanting to live in Silicon Valley because he was a family man(I don't live there, is it not family friendly?), but this is still very sad news, 51 is very young. Condolences to his family.
This is very sad and shocking news. What I find interesting is that he was already at the hospital prior to the heart attack (he went in due to a fishbone he swallowed). Was he misdiagnosed, or was it so sudden and so catastrophic that even with no transit time to the hospital he died? Anyone with experience that can shed some light on that? I always thought there was a "golden hour" for things like this.
Yes and no - the faster you can get them to the hospital, the better the chance. But complete occlusion of one of many arteries or veins will lead to sudden death, and each minute that passes means death of the heart muscle. Heart muscle death means less likelihood of being able to restart the heart. Most commonly found in inferior MIs, whereby the blood pressure will plummet.
Truth is, there's still a lot about the heart we don't know, even in the areas of preventive medicine. It's possible a preliminary screening for cholesterol and high blood pressure would've caught it. It's also possible for his cholesterol and blood pressure and other markers to be normal.
I know someone (also in his early 50s) who was driven to hospital by his doctor wife after experiencing vague chest pain and other non-specific symptoms. He didn't know he was having a heart attack. His heart stopped while in the ER waiting to be examined, and she resuscitated him herself. His survival (with no impairment) was dependent on his wife recognising the signs of the heart attack, and getting him to a hospital in time, and being a doctor. I suspect that in that sort of situation, luck plays a big part.
My condolences to the friends and family of Mr Kouri.
I don't mean to hijack this discussion, but this could be a cue for somebody to visit the culture of dealing with a loss within the developer community. I would really like to hear the thoughts of a professional on this. I have witnessed one case where people completely ignored the loss and chose to forget that the person ever was there; or at least that is what I thought was happening. Is this what happens in all workplaces? How healthy/sane is such a reaction or lack thereof?
Close personal friend. Never wanted any publicity. Would take the shirt off his back to help anyone, and never asked for anything back. Perhaps the most solid guy I have had the pleasure to call a friend. Great husband. Great dad....I've never heard anyone echo a negative comment about him. His friendship, humor and sage advice will be missed.
Technically only two guys. But with the merger with X.com and some of
the messiness that came after it a few more got added to the list. Some may even claim to have done so if they knew there were no consequences.
PayPal's co-founders are typically considered to be Peter, Max and Elon. The linked article actually has a more accurate headline noting that Greg was an "early PayPal investor".
Greg was a friend of mine since early childhood. He founded Zip2 with the Musks and as I understand it he served in an informal capacity advising Musk when paypal was founded. Greg was a humble person, despite his tremendous financial success. He had a great sense of humor and keen business savvy. He did his undergrad at Western in London, Ontario. He will be missed by those who knew him.
He is probably trying to, correctly, imply that heart attacks at 51 are an anomaly given how much we know about heart attacks and how accurately tests can predict them. Especially for a person of the deceased's means.
The OP is also factually correct: "The current generation of American children may be the first not to live as long as their parents". [1] [2]
I didn't down vote you but I think your initial down votes were based on two things:
1) you stated your opinion as a fact. There is some research to point to shorter life expectancy but stating it as a fact that will happen no matter what seems a little strong.
2) you state that life expectancy will "plummet". Plummet indicates a very large dropoff. From what I've seen, some respected paper suggest that life expectancy might dip by a year or so.
But to have a say 10 year drop, which is what plummet would indicate seems rash as no credible scientists are predicting that.
I think he is trying to imply that someone having a heart attack at 51 should not be considered normal, unless you smoke.
My father is very old, there are over 20 or so of his friends that died in his 50s. All of them were hight smokers. Not a single "non-smoker" friend died on his 50s, in fact they seem to get by at least to the 70s.
Things like lung cancer were almost unheard of before people started smoking(before WW less than 3% of the population smoked).
He was a smart, genuine guy that really cared about helping us. From what I'd picked up he was a close friend to Elon Musk and had backed him @ zip2, paypal, tesla and space x.
He gave us some great advice, and took a lot of time out to make intro's and give us feedback.