
Josef Desimone, Facebook's executive chef, has died - paradiseall
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100895107738711
======
nostromo
I've always admired Google for elevating the role of chef to such
unprecedented heights.

But it also makes me wonder what other roles in these big companies could be
elevated. (Random example, perhaps the cleaning staff.)

When I was at Amazon circa 1999 rumor had it that the van driver we saw once a
day (he delivered intra-office mail -- is that still a thing?) had at minimum
hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock options and maybe much more. Beyond
being a tad jealous, it also made me happy that the company would think enough
of the "support" staff to make sure they were given the same perks as everyone
else, even if they were of a different magnitude.

~~~
tlrobinson
Compare to good old Zynga: "One Journal source said that Zynga executives were
especially concerned with not creating a "Google chef" scenario."

[http://m.cnet.com/news/zynga-to-employees-give-back-our-
stoc...](http://m.cnet.com/news/zynga-to-employees-give-back-our-stock-or-
youll-be-fired/57322150)

------
soupboy
According to [http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/04/business/fi-
chef4](http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/04/business/fi-chef4), Desimone
worked for Google before Facebook. "As Google's first executive chef, Ayers
hired Desimone in 2003 when Google was growing so fast that they cooked in the
back of an 18-wheeler and served meals under tents."

Quite an amazing journey. RIP.

------
freehunter
I just think about projects I benefit from and team members I've worked with
and how this can happen at any moment. How differently the world seems when
you take just one person out of it. Suddenly, everyone around you becomes the
most important person to ever exist.

My deepest condolences to the Desimone family and to everyone at Facebook.

------
67726e
Perhaps I am just lacking some perspective here and someone could better
inform me, and I don't mean to be "that guy" right now, but how does this
really relate to the guideline of:

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

I can understand when someone like Douglas Engelbart dies and HN is filled
with stories about him, but what exactly has this chef done that makes him
noteworthy on HN?

~~~
untog
He worked at both Facebook and Google, so aside from anything else I have to
assume that a good number of HN readers have benefitted from his cooking.

Are developers now the only employees worth celebrating at tech companies?

~~~
67726e
Maybe I'm just coming from a different perspective having only ever worked for
a small company, but I don't exactly find a chef to be noteworthy, at least
not in any technical sense.

Let me put it another way, aside from the employees of Google or Facebook,
what has this man done that would make him interesting to the rest of the
people on this site? What did he do that makes him noteworthy? I'm sure he was
a good man and all, but what does he matter to me? By all means, if there is
something noteworthy, please let me know, otherwise why was this posted?

~~~
DrJokepu
Please stop. What you're doing is not appropriate.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
While his comments may come off as insensitive to some people, merely
expressing an opinion, even one that may be unpopular or disagreed with, is
not inappropriate in any way.

I encourage him to not stop expressing his true thoughts on this subject, as
well as on any other subject that may come up. The uninhibited exchange of
ideas is what makes for truly interesting and insightful discussion. Once
political correctness or avoiding hurt feelings overtakes free expression,
further discussion becomes pointless.

~~~
DrJokepu
There is the right place and the right time for expressing dissenting opinion.
An announcement about someone passing away is simply not it. I don't know how
else I could explain this. This is just basic decency.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
This is a perfectly acceptable time and place to discuss anything relating to
this matter.

The decent thing for everyone here to do is to express their true opinions,
regardless of how others may interpret them.

Holding back, or not expressing one's ideas at all, out of some fear of
"offending" somebody is a truly indecent thing to do.

------
sdfjkl
Mark's grinning face right above this announcement bothers me for some reason:
[http://cl.ly/image/2k0p2v2A1U3t](http://cl.ly/image/2k0p2v2A1U3t)

~~~
hkmurakami
it might be a decent (though seldom used) feature for these communication
mediums to have (FB, G+, etc) to be able to hotswap your icon for just one
message when the message is grave.

many gmail users now have icons (gee thanks, G+), and I can imagine that this
awkwardness happens frequently in death notice emails sent to family and
friends. Swapping it with even a generic frown face icon might do.

~~~
samstave
I recall when a colleague I had worked with passed away suddenly and we were
not yet connected on linkedin, and linkedin was sending me reminders to
connect with her for months after she passed.

I emailed support at linkedin and told them of the passing - never got a
response - but the alerts eventually stopped... though I do not attribute
their stopping to my email to them.

