
Grooveshark co-founder, 28, found dead in home - cnnrjcbsn
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20150720/ARTICLES/150729990
======
tmountain
I worked with Josh for over five years at Grooveshark. The day I applied for
the job, he spent several hours pitching the company to me with rampant
enthusiasm in hopes that I'd take a risk (and a huge pay cut) and come work
with the team.

From the day I took the job, I watched Josh tirelessly run through his pitch
time and time again, always with the same attention to detail, and the same
level of genuine interest in getting to know each candidate. He was frenetic
and unflinching in his desire to succeed.

Josh cared about his team, and he never let the negative chains of events that
plagued Grooveshark over the years get the best of him. He kept a sticker on
his desk that said, "this too shall pass", and even in the worst times, he'd
give a wry smile and crack a joke to let everyone know that things weren't as
bad as they seemed.

I spoke with Josh at a bar downtown about two weeks ago, and he was again in
good spirits. He had a new idea for a startup that he was preparing to begin
work on in earnest, and he seemed genuinely excited about his path forward. In
talking about Grooveshark, it was evident that closing that chapter in his
life was a weight off his shoulders.

Needless to say, I'm extremely sad to see Josh go. He was a dear friend and a
hell of a human being. He opened countless doors for hundreds of people and
helped create a true startup community here in Gainesville. Josh, you will be
sorely missed.

~~~
noir_lord
I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

Grooveshark was my absolute favourite website for close to a half a decade, I
can't even count the hours I spent listening to it.

~~~
hkmurakami
I echo your sentiments. I felt that it was the music service that put its
users' experience before all other concerns (which surely lead to its legal
issues). When there was a song I wanted to listen to, I came back to it time
and time again, rebuffing Spotify and its ilk.

------
jkimmel
My step-sister dated Josh for a while when I was growing up.

My few memories of him consist mostly of Josh explaining technology to me at
the dinner table in slow, careful words so that a middle school kid could
understand. I remember him laughing with me about the crazy/terrible things I
had done to overclock my Android Dev Phone 1 at a time when no one else I knew
thought that was interesting. I remember feeling really cool when he hooked me
up with free Grooveshark premium to be nice.

It's strange. I haven't seen or heard from him in nearly a decade. He stopped
dating my step-sister years ago. He likely wouldn't have remembered my name if
you asked him.

Still, I feel like a friend is gone.

~~~
emehrkay
I hope this doesn't come off as too selfish, but I hope that I can do
things/interact with people that leaves a meaningful bond long after the
relationship has "ended" Maybe paying it forward is the best thing to do in
his memory.

~~~
otherusername2
I think we don't even realise the impact we can have on people, deliberate or
otherwise. Years ago, when I finished highschool, this guy came up to me and
said "thanks for acting normal to me, it really helped me through the last
four years". I kinda knew he got bullied, but I never really realized how much
it bothered him or how my interaction with him affected him. He was just this
guy, and on occasion I'd talk to him if I saw him in the hallways.

Since then, I've always had the feeling that you don't really have to try hard
to have a meaningful impact on other people's lives. Just be nice in general
and you'll have more impact than you can imagine.

~~~
Devthrowaway80
I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can
show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.

------
Shrugs
I interned at Grooveshark two summers ago; Josh incredibly changed my life for
the better. The Summer with the Sharks program was transformative and
catapulted me out of Louisiana and into the world of tech. He's such a happy
and charismatic personality; the company outings, like going to Disneyworld,
are some of my best memories.

Talk about a life gone too soon. I'm pouring one out for Josh tonight.

~~~
zbruhnke
what part of Louisiana are you from? I don't meet many others from my neck of
the woods in tech

~~~
Shrugs
Slidell. I went to school at LaTech for a year and a half. I I recently found
a fellow Google intern who's from Slidell as well, but we'd never met
previously because we went to rival highschools.

~~~
mintplant
Wow, I never thought I'd run into someone else from Slidell on here. Did you
go to Northshore High, by any chance?

~~~
Shrugs
I went to Slidell High; the other Google intern went to Northshore. And now
one more from Slidell. I love how the internet brought us all together even
though we were previously so close but didn't know it.

~~~
usea
I'm also from Slidell. What a surprise seeing this thread here on HN today.
Went to Slidell High, too. Cheers.

------
aagha
This news both both shocking and painful.

When I started my company, Josh was the first person to take a chance with our
nacent technology.

When Grooveshark recently shut down, I sent him a note telling him how sad I
was to hear about their great service being shut down, and referneced
roosevelt's The Man in the Arena poem.

Josh wrote back:

> Thanks man… I appreciate the kind words and also absolutely love that quote.
> > We’re not done yet… Grooveshark’s chapter is over but I’m at least happy
> to be free of the dark cloud and excited to move onto new things. > Onward
> and upward… > This is my personal email address by the way, so please do
> keep in touch. > Best of luck with everything at Metrical… hang in there. >
> Josh

Always positive, supportive and kind, he was a mentor to me despite our
considerable age difference. I'll miss him.

------
pvnick
Josh was an incredible man. He was an inspiration, and everybody that knew him
admired him. Always friendly and helpful to everyone. He supported me
professionally both while I was at Grooveshark and after I left, and I owe so
much to him. This is very sad to hear.

------
ladybro
To say that Josh had a positive effect on those around him is a severe
understatement. I only conversed with him a few times over the last two years,
but am left with a heavy heart this morning after seeing the pain of the
Gainesville community.

My heart goes out to his girlfriend and all of those with tears running down
their cheeks since last night. Rest in peace, and thanks for all you have
done.

------
MyNameIsMK
When will we realize that as entrepreneurs, founders and creators that we have
to support each other?

Let's have an open door policy when a fellow entrepreneur reaches out to us to
ask for help, advise or just wants to talk to someone who can relate to what
they are going through in starting, running and growing a new business or just
life in general.

There are those in our community who wake up and live breathe and are
motivated by a mission to make an impact in the world. Its not all about the
money. The true leaders of our generation are motivated by being of service to
others.

It costs no money to make a friend in your own community and let's not try to
be so cut throat. We are the ones fighting giants who are failing every day to
adjust their strategies to adopt to a new generation who could care less of
"how it's always been done."

RIP Josh. You will be missed by everyone.

------
beat
Keep in mind that there are health conditions that can kill seemingly healthy
young adults instantly - aneurisms, heart attacks, brain cancers, and others.

I'm reminded of one of my dogs dying of hemangiosarcoma - a cancer of the
blood vessel linings that thankfully only happens to dogs, not humans. In many
cases, the way we find out a dog has hemangiosarcoma is that the dog suddenly
just drops dead. (In Rubu's case, it was three weeks from the first symptoms.)
There are similarly fast and deadly cancers in humans.

~~~
TillE
Yeah. Deaths from undiagnosed heart conditions make the news every so often
when it happens to young athletes. Sometimes very young. I believe just in the
past few years, defibrillators have become standard equipment at football
grounds in Spain and England.

~~~
sliverstorm
Undiagnosed conditions aside, there is also commotio cordis, which I believe
has killed a number of high school sportsmen.

~~~
rytis
Commotio cordis (Latin, "agitation of the heart") is an often lethal
disruption of heart rhythm that occurs as a result of a blow to the area
directly over the heart (the precordial region), at a critical time during the
cycle of a heart beat causing cardiac arrest. It is a form of ventricular
fibrillation (V-Fib), not mechanical damage to the heart muscle or surrounding
organs, and not the result of heart disease. The fatality rate is about 65%.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotio_cordis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotio_cordis)

------
udev
Sad news.

Josh created a service that was a pleasure to use. I discovered so much music
using it.

When Grooveshark closed, I moved to Spotify, which, IMO, has a very long way
to go before it becomes what Grooveshark was in terms of music diversity.

------
jmtame
As soon as I read the headline I was scared to read Josh's name in the
article. I had the opportunity to interview him for a book, and I placed his
interview at the very beginning of the book because I personally found it one
of the most interesting. At the end of that phone call I thought to myself: if
I was in Florida I would love to work with this guy. RIP Josh.

------
prajjwal
If I were to list all the great bands/music I discovered on Grooveshark, and
all the music from my childhood that I rediscovered, I would surely run into
some kind of comment length limit here.

RIP man, your work touched lives.

------
goeric
Just awful. My condolences to his family and friends. Josh accomplished more
in 28 years than most do in a lifetime, yet he had so much of his life left to
live. Life is precious, and we can't waste a second of it.

------
djfm
"toxicology results would be done in two or three months"

This seems like a long time, is it normal?

~~~
raverbashing
Real life is not a CSI episode, also labs have a limited processing ability

But maybe tests are done in stages? Like, if nothing obvious shows up on first
tests then some other ones are done?

~~~
DanBC
I don't think anyone is expecting "enhance enhance enhance ah, this person had
$SUBSTANCE in their blood", but months does feel a bit long.

It'd be interesting to see what the bottlenecks are and how to improve them.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
State and local gov't funding level for forensic labs. It costs money to do it
correctly, and nobody wants to spend that kind of money, even though we wind
up paying more, and imprisoning people wrongly.

[http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/05/commission-looks-
misc...](http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/05/commission-looks-misconduct-
dps-worker/)

Harris county, Texas just recently got a new one because of similarly
disturbing corruption and incompetence.

[http://www.harriscountytx.gov/ifs/](http://www.harriscountytx.gov/ifs/)

~~~
angersock
Yep. They're currently in the same building as a big medical incucellerbator.
The Nabisco building is silly big.

------
israellot
"Now hurry up and move to the US so you can come hang out and meet the team!
;-)" These were Josh's last words to me on an email.

------
VaedaStrike
Sad. Grooveshark always allowed me to find stuff I had a hard time finding
otherwise. Good memories with my son when he was between one and two dancing
in our little apartment living room to music from grooveshark. Condolences to
family and friends. I don't know him, but he made something that has a part of
several really good memories.

------
efuquen
It's no small understatement to say that I, and countless others, would not be
where we are today without Josh, his mentorship, and his kind spirit. The
world is a little darker today without him, but his influence will make it
shine brighter still. Thanks for everything you taught us Josh, I hope you've
found peace.

------
s_q_b
I only knew Josh through his creation, Grooveshark, and it was truly an
excellent company. I was very sad the day it shut down. From those who knew
him personally he sounds like a true mensch. I wish I had the opportunity to
know you, Josh.

"No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thy friend's Or of
thine own were: Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in
mankind..."

I'll be saying a prayer and pouring one out for you tonight.

------
HenryTheHorse
Rest in peace, young man.

Grooveshark was a fantastic service and the music brought joy to thousands of
music lovers. Thank you.

------
tempodox
_... toxicology results will take two or three months._

Wow, for people close to him, waiting for the results, that time must feel
like an eternity. Why does it take that long?

~~~
talmand
Probably mixture of no sign of foul play and backlog.

------
israellot
"Now hurry up and move to the US so you can come hang out and meet the team!
;-)"

Josh's last words to me on an email.

------
turingbook
Can anyone explained to me that why Grooveshark did not convert into the same
model as of Pandora or Spotify?

~~~
turingbook
Maybe this is an explanation: [https://medium.com/@492727ZED/steve-jobs-made-
warner-music-s...](https://medium.com/@492727ZED/steve-jobs-made-warner-music-
sue-my-startup-9a81c5a21d68)

------
Jonathanks
I've never known him. I'm not from that side of earth and I never knew about
Grooveshark. But I feel I've lost him; we've lost him. With teary eyes, my
good wishes go to all who share this loss in substance or in spirit. Rest in
peace Josh.

------
elkhourygeorges
This is really sad. I study in UF while Grooveshark was taking off. I never
met Josh but Grooveshark was creating a great startup vibe in Gainesville. I
kept using it long after I moved to Seattle. Condolences to family and
friends.

------
mmaunder
So sad. Not just the loss for his family and friends, but to lose an
entrepreneur with all that wisdom that comes from the experience he had. We
may have also lost the several more great startups that he would have created.
RIP.

------
dylanz
Ugh :( ... He was one of our favorite customers, and an insanely nice guy.
Every time we got new company schwag, we'd swap! We were all a bit floored
upon hearing this. My condolences to his family and friends.

------
blu_jay
Sad day. I'm good friends with Josh's younger brother and study at UF. It was
definitely clear that the two of them shared the same sense of wonder and awe
when it came to technology.

------
matznerd
So sad to hear this, he was a very nice guy and extremely friendly.

------
jMyles
Jeez we've lost a lot of good people in the past couple years.

------
schmappel
I never knew him and scarcely used GrooveShark. But reading through these
comments it is clear we've lost a wonderful guy. Very sad this happened to
him. Rest in peace, Josh.

------
intrasight
Very sad. My heartfelt condolences go out to the family.

------
markhall
I had the pleasure of talking with Josh on more than one occasion - what a
great guy. This is real sad news.

------
kevando
Damn. It really sucks when a death gets clouded with confusion. Such a weird
combination of emotion.

------
traviswingo
"toxicology results will take two or three months."

Did this bother anyone else?

~~~
cbsmith
Considering that's how about the time period we were told to wait for my
brother-in-law's toxicology report, no.

------
ank_9
R.I.P Josh :(

------
austenallred
:(

------
methodover
Fuuuuuuck. Sometimes I think I have a good handle on death, and what it means.
Sometimes I think I understand it. Sometimes I think I don't fear it.

Then something like this happens and, just, _fuck_. I don't know how to handle
it. Someone my age, doing something very similar to me, just dies. That's it.
Story's over.

A few weeks ago I told my CEO that I intended to quit and pursue a dream that
I've been wanting to pursue for a long time now. My boss seemed pretty
surprised -- it's a really good job after all, with good pay, at a good
company. I gave him an argument that began with, "I'm going to die. Not like,
I'm going to die soon. I don't have a disease or anything. I don't know when
it's going to happen, but it could happen soon." And then I went on to talk
about pursuing said dream.

At the time it felt like a really silly argument -- like, I'm not even thirty
yet and I'm thinking about how I'm going to die someday. Then something like
this happens. And death feels so much closer, so much more real. Like a
nightmare just waiting around the corner, ending my story before I'm done with
it.

~~~
marincounty
I felt like you do now when I was your age. I had a nervous breakdown, in part
because of my extreme fear of death. After the breakdown, I knew my life was
over. Meaning the life I envisioned for myself was over. I just wasn't the
same person. I felt like an alien.

Well, as the years went by, I managed to survive. Dying young is an anomaly.
It's rare. Do what you want in your life, but you will probally make it to old
age. It does go by quick, so have some fun. In my case, the fear of death
lessened as I got older. The lessening of the fear of death might be the only
thing that age offers? No--most fear went down with each year that passed.
Some of it was learning? For instance, for years, I didn't declair a
bankruptcy because I optimistically overstated my income on a credit card
application. I talked to a good lawyer, and he said "You along with everyone
else!". "Of course--no one admits it though?" (I not stating it's good to lie,
but knowledge lessens fear. Along, with a good lawyer? Oh yea, if you live a
risky life; get to know the legal system. Know those statute of limitations.)
Again went off base, I just saying you will statistically make it old age.

~~~
twitmwu
I've spent the past few weeks going through the nervous breakdown you describe
in your first paragraph.

A few years worth of stress (life/startup/etc.) managed to explode in a single
night thanks to a rather traumatic experience with alcohol and hallucinogenic
drugs, and in the weeks that have followed I've come to realize my anxieties
come from this extreme fear of death/impermanence.

I'm still taking things day by day, and the panic attacks are passing more
easily every day. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your experience.
Reading little things like this from other people has helped me more than I
can express :)

~~~
ak39
Take it easy fellow "extension of this universe"! We are all in this together.

Like Alan Watts said " _You_ are something that the whole universe is doing
.... in the same way that a wave is something the whole ocean is doing".

I can't remember anything before I was born. That wasn't painful at all. Why
should I assume that it will be different after I'm dead?

I'm sure even Marcus Aurelius got tired of talking about death at some point
and simply went out to get a beer or hug a warm body. Let's go do that. :-)

------
harryjo
There's no need to perform a speculative autopsy on HN; I request the mods
dispense strong guidance to posters in this thread.

~~~
peterwwillis
Seconded; speculating about a person's demise before they're even in the
ground is in stupendously bad taste. Family and friends (and others) don't
want to read that crap. Give it a rest, people.

~~~
simoncion
I would have no problem with public speculation about the manner of or motives
behind the death of any of my friends or family.

Most speculation _is_ a bunch of hot air, but such threads also provide a
place to talk about the deceased and his works, and to talk about other,
related things. I, for one, appreciate the vast majority of conversation
attached to this HN post.

~~~
braythwayt
On several scuba and climbing sites I visit, there is a strict separation
between mourning a death and speculating/analyzing the cause.

It may be a little different here, but the experience with risky sports is
that a thread examining the cause may include suggestions that the person was
somewhat at fault.

Many of the people mourning someones passing would prefer such discussions not
be interleaved with celebrating their accomplishments or friends grieving the
loss.

I certainly think both conversations should happen. But humans being human, it
isn't always the best thing for them to happen in the same place at the same
time.

~~~
simoncion
I wish that HN was more like Metafilter in its ability to section off
condolences and well-wishes threads from speculation threads.

Unfortunately, the method by which posts get to and stay on the front page
ensure that HN will never be able to perform this sort of segmentation.

~~~
sdoering
Well that leaves it in the hands of caring individuals, intelligent sentient
beings, to refrain from speculation here.

No need to call for a tech-solution, when the solution is simply to be found
in human decency and kindness.

Having gone through a quite similar loss myself recently, I view things maybe
slightly different and would not have liked reading/hearing speculation about
fathers death while mourning his loss and having to deal with the shock of his
last farewell.

~~~
simoncion
Your opening sentence implies that anyone who desires to engage in speculation
is not a caring individual. Perhaps this is not what you intended.

I, too have lost enemies, acquaintances, friends, and family. My position
regarding public speculation as to any aspect of each one's demise was the
same then as it is now.

Metafilter's solution to the desire of some to engage in speculation and of
others to not intermingle that speculation with well-wishes and sympathy is
first and foremost a social one. Moderators _and_ community participants steer
misdirected conversation to the appropriate thread.

It is true that Mefi's software[0] makes this guidance far easier to achieve
than HN's software [1]. Frankly, I'm quietly calling for a technical change
that will allow the HN community to enact a large cultural change.

The technical change alone is woefully insufficient. Without a corresponding
cultural change, speculation and well-wishes will remain intermixed.

[0] Anything posted by a member appears on the front page. The latest X posts
are displayed on the front page. Posts fall off of the front page as new ones
come in.

[1] Member posts must receive a certain -unknown- number of upvotes to appear
on the front page. Posts that appear on the front page require a constant
stream of additional votes in order to stay on the front page.

------
logicrime
I know the knee-jerk reaction is to assume foul play, but I knew him a little
bit and he was as healthy as an ox. Or at least he was several months ago the
last time I saw him.

I don't know, but it would shock me to the bone if someone could truly get
angry enough at a man like him, to try and hurt him. He knew like we all knew,
Grooveshark was never going to last, but it reinforced the point that Napster
proved and I think that was always one of the major goals of the project.

That being said, I wish all the best to the Grooveshark family. It's never
easy to lose someone like that, it always is hard.

~~~
Udo
The article pretty much rules this out, no idea where you got the foul play
angle from:

> " _Lori Greenberg, his mother, said Monday he had no health problems and she
> was told by police who investigated Sunday night that there was no evidence
> of foul play, injuries or drugs._ "

~~~
mahranch
That's a bit misleading. It says there was no evidence of drugs but then goes
on to say that the toxicology report would take 2-3 months.

They probably just didn't see any drugs lying around. If he didn't have some
sort of undiagnosed medical condition, he may have very well OD'd on
something. Research chemicals, xanax and opiate combo, etc... It's fairly
common for people to OD on those things and they're all readily available.

~~~
michaelfeathers
> It says there was no evidence of drugs but then goes on to say that the
> toxicology report would take 2-3 months.

Hard to believe it takes so long in the 21st century. Is that bureaucracy or
science?

~~~
arthurcolle
Probably just their estimate of the toxicology backlog in Gainesville so
bureaucracy.

------
itistoday2
Josh taught me that people, above everything else, are the most important part
of a company. Sage advice that may seem obvious but too many fail to remember.

I only knew him briefly, but I'm grateful for the chance to have known him.
The other commenters are right, he was an incredibly positive person, and he
did change Gainesville for the better. A great loss. My thoughts are with his
friends and his family.

------
tallerholler
terrible tragedy.. hopefully it wasn't suicide, grooveshark was a great
product

------
hellbanner
"Lori Greenberg, his mother, said Monday he had no health problems and she was
told by police who investigated Sunday night that there was no evidence of
foul play, injuries or drugs."

Then.. what the hell happened?

I don't want to play conspiracy too hard here -- could be she's hiding some
health issues? but given the recording industry's links with aggressive
legislation (TPP, piracy laws), this makes me wonder:

"Several record companies had sued the online music streaming service over
copyright violations."

~~~
jlillyreed
take it to reddit

