Best known for being the husband of the COO at Facebook Sheryl Sandberg, Dave Goldberg, died Friday at the age of 47. However, few know he was royalty in Silicon Valley as well.
He sold to Yahoo a music streaming company when he was just 33 and he raised over $1 billion for funding SurveyMonkey, a company he led when he died. CEO Dick Costolo of Twitter said Goldberg was a great person and a remarkable character. Dozens more tributes were posts on the Facebook page of Goldberg, which was opened by his family to all well-wishers. His death was called sudden, but his cause of death was not disclosed.
Goldberg at SurveyMonkey pioneered the approach that is now widespread of raising capital in the late stages, from investors that are private, instead of going public.
Goldberg was born in Minnesota and studied at Harvard University. People heading to Harvard he wrote think they are the best at a particular thing but there always is someone that is smarter therefore, it teaches humility.
Goldberg started his career as a Bain & Company consultant prior to working at Capitol Records in business development and marketing. The label included Coldplay and Frank Sinatra.
At one time, he considered working at Microsoft but was dissuaded partially due to Seattle having so much rain.
At just 26, in 1994 Goldberg was the founder of Launch Media, which gave listeners the ability to listen online, as music labels fought Napster the filing sharing service in legal battles, he aimed to build an alternative for users and ultimately to replace the traditional radio.
Launch in 1999 was on the stock market and two years later was acquired by Yahoo at the time of the dotcom bubble bursting. He was in Los Angeles with Yahoo until 2007 then two years with Benchmark Capital a venture capital firm.
He joined SurveyMonkey in 2009. The online polling business had less than 20 employees, but by 2013, he raised $1 billion for the company. The company now has 400 employees.
