By Douglas MacMillan And Deepa Seetharaman
The sudden death of technology executive David Goldberg has left
Silicon Valley without one of its greatest champions of the private
startup.
A veteran of the technology industry who founded, advised,
invested in or ran dozens of companies, Mr. Goldberg advocated for
keeping startups private, away from the regulatory hurdles of the
public markets, for as long as possible.
He put this philosophy to work over the past six years at
SurveyMonkey.com LLC, which he took from a 12-person startup to a
500-person company while raising more than $1.2 billion from
investors. Many private companies are following that strategy
today, raising as much capital as possible to stave off an IPO.
"This is the biggest loss in Silicon Valley since Steve Jobs,"
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com Inc., said in an interview.
"The way that Steve Jobs was very much a visionary in technology,
Dave Goldberg was very much a visionary in how to lead a life of
all seasons."
Mr. Goldberg, the husband of Facebook Inc. Chief Operating
Officer Sheryl Sandberg, died Friday while vacationing in Mexico
with family and friends, a spokesman for the Attorney General's
office of Nayarit state said Monday.
The spokeswoman, who didn't wish to be named, said Mr. Goldberg
appeared to have lost his balance on a treadmill in Punta Mita and
fallen, hitting the back of his head. Mr. Goldberg was still alive
when he was found by his brother, Robert, the spokeswoman said, and
he was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died.
Cause of death was ruled a severe brain trauma caused by massive
loss of blood, the spokeswoman said. He was 47 years old.
An invitation-only memorial service was scheduled for Tuesday at
Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium. Invitations specified
that men should not wear ties, "in keeping with Dave's lifelong
hatred of ties."
Mr. Goldberg's death leaves an opening at the helm of
SurveyMonkey, the fast-growing online questionnaire service that
was valued by investors at close to $2 billion in a round of
funding last December. Mr. Goldberg had led several new initiatives
at the company over the past year, including a benchmarking service
that helps businesses measure how their customer and employee
satisfaction compares to their competitors.
A spokeswoman for SurveyMonkey said the company hasn't named a
successor to Mr. Goldberg. "Out of respect for Dave, his family and
SurveyMonkey employees now is not the time to discuss succession,"
she said. "The company has a solid leadership team firmly in place
that has been with the company for more than five years."
Though it hasn't gone public, SurveyMonkey has rewarded
employees and early investors with cash through Mr. Goldberg's
creative approach to private fundraising. He joined the company in
2009, when a consortium of private-equity firms led by Spectrum
Equity Investors took majority ownership. In 2013, he raised more
than $800 million in debt and equity to buy employee stock and cash
out some earlier investors.
"This transaction affords us all of the capital benefits of a
public offering without the costs and distractions of an IPO and
the demands of operating as a public company," Mr. Goldberg said at
the time. Mr. Goldberg has taken specific issue with the strict
regulatory requirements that can limit a public company's ability
to take bold chances.
"If it was about bragging rights and Dave's agenda, he would
probably have gone public," said Bill McGlashan, head of
private-equity fund TPG Growth, who served on SurveyMonkey's board
until earlier this year. "The agenda was to keep building a great
business."
Mr. Goldberg's views may have stemmed from his losses during the
dot-com bubble. He took his first startup, a music magazine called
Launch, public in April 1999. Soon after, the stock crashed and he
ended up selling to Yahoo Inc. for around $12 million.
As the husband of Facebook's number-two executive, however, he
also had a front-row seat at the largest IPO of a U.S. tech company
when the social network went public in 2012.
As a director on the board of Ancestry.com Inc., Mr. Goldberg
helped lead a push, in 2012, to sell a controlling stake to
European private-equity firm Permira, taking the company
private.
A well-liked community builder in the tech industry, Mr.
Goldberg played in poker games and an annual dinner at the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He also served as a mentor and
advisor to startups.
When Nextdoor founder Nirav Tolia was struggling with an earlier
version of his startup, called Fanbase, he asked for advice from
Mr. Goldberg, who he had spent time with as fellow
entrepreneurs-in-residence at the venture-capital firm Benchmark.
Mr. Tolia said he planned to give Fanbase investors their money
back and start a new company, but Mr. Goldberg talked him out of
it.
"Dave was the main person who said, 'You're not giving the money
back, you are entrepreneurs who are building something great,'" Mr.
Tolia said. "When someone like Dave has that kind of conviction,
you have to listen."
José de Córdoba contributed to this article.
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com
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