« Crunching Bumper, Wireless Buddha | Main | Mr. Buddha Goes To Washington »
July 09, 2002
Goodbye Gene
Gene Kan, a friend of mine from high school, died last week. I hadn't spoken to him in a few years. I emailed him about two months ago, but the address I had bounced back, and I never got around to following up. Gene was 25.
I can't say I feel the loss as profoundly as his close friends or family, whose lives he played a large role in, but I will miss him nonetheless.
Gene's high school graduation speech "Shampoo Planet" was the inspiration for my own speech, given a year later, and what inspired me to read all of Douglas Coupland's novels. Gene also introduced me to the web, when I was staying with him at Berkeley my senior year of high school.
Even all those years ago, Gene was someone who seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. He was always honest and never seemed to believe the hype. I often look back at my high school years and think about my group of friends. Primarily a year ahead of me, it was a group of phenomenally talented and intelligent people and I considered myself lucky to have latched on. I always wonder if the school had any idea what they were dealing with. A group like that just does not come along every year. They could have done anything, it seemed. And Gene was the one who actually did. Gene founded companies with his friends and was a leader in his field. He was in the news. Local boy makes good. All of that before 25. To me, Gene always represented the potential of our group of friends.
Goodbye, Blue Ninja.
Posted by buddha at July 9, 2002 01:13 PM
Comments
I hadn't heard from Gene in probably five years. I'm stunned at what he acheived by the age of 25 and by the fact that depression can overpower this.
The other surprise is that, even having not talked to him in years (and never having been as close as you were to him) I'm almost in a state of shock. I guess some people just leave an impression.
I'm not really sure what to say, but I can't stand the idea of this entry having zero comments.
Posted by: jason at July 10, 2002 10:43 AM
Like Jason, I hadn't talked to Gene in a couple of years either. And I can't stand the thought of this entry having just one comment. It's a week after I heard of Gene's death, and I'm still groping for words to describe how I feel about such a tragic end to such a promising life.
Gene was truly one of the smartest and talented guys I've ever known, and it shakes me to think that a guy I used to crack sarcastic jokes with in the halls of Troy High School is gone by his own hand. I feel so sorry for Gene, his family and friends. I can't imagine the depression he must have been experiencing to feel that death was his best option. He was only 25 years old.
It's strange, the memories have of certain people. I remember hanging out with Gene and a few other friends at Dan's house in Fullerton many years ago, discussing (what else?) the women at our high school. I mentioned a girl on the cross-country team that I had an enormous crush on. Gene nodded in agreement, saying that as a runner she had "a great lower half." That was almost ten years ago, and for some reason the comment still sticks out in my mind.
The last time I really talked with Gene was the summer before he graduated from Berkeley. I went out to lunch with him and was struck by his understated confidence. He had no fear of graduating and entering the job market, since he was already programming more code with fewer bugs as a student that most full-time programmers. He wasn't saying this to be cocky or ego-inflating; it was simply the truth.
After that, everything else is history. Gene's star grew rapidly, so quickly that the next time I heard about him was in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, then Fortune, then Time, then too many places to keep track of. It was amazing to see that, while the rest of my friends were just deciding upon their fields of work, Gene had already made a real difference in his.
Farewell, Gene. We'll miss you.
Posted by: Scott at July 15, 2002 08:18 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)