Sanaz Ahari just sent me a Facebook message that Steve Rider has passed away, he died from pre-leukemia on June 5. He was diagnosed just a year ago. I interviewed him back when I was a Microsoft employee and he was doing incredible work, both back then and then at iLike.com. He was one of the most innovative people I met at Microsoft and was behind early live.com efforts.
Add to last weekend’s tragic death of Rajeev Motwani, who was one of the early people involved in Google and a well respected Stanford Professor, and it just makes me sad.
Today my work is dedicated to both of them. They both improved my life with their work, I wish I could come up to that bar that they’ve set with their all-to-young lives.