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But SurveyMonkey had shown incredible resiliency, and the company’s continued success was very important to me, because it was part of Dave’s legacy. I had hired a lot of people at GoPro, and I was excited about leading them. The team at GoPro had been very gracious to me after Dave’s death, and I felt loyal to it. This time I had to do some difficult thinking. The board asked me to consider taking his place. He recognized that the fit wasn’t right, so he volunteered to step down. Within a few months, however, it was clear that the new CEO’s strategy wasn’t aligned with the board’s. In July, after an extensive search, we hired Dave’s successor. I told everyone I wasn’t a candidate to become SurveyMonkey’s CEO, and I held to that. I asked the CEO of GoPro for permission to split my time between GoPro and SurveyMonkey over the summer, and he graciously agreed. SurveyMonkey’s board asked if I’d be willing to step in as interim executive chairman, with two primary goals: to lead the search for Dave’s successor, and to help the company execute the plan Dave had mapped out. In addition to being a board member, I was working full-time in Los Angeles as a senior vice president at GoPro, the action camera company, where I ran the entertainment division. After Dave’s death one of the many insightful things Sheryl wrote was “The ability to compartmentalize is healthy.” It required all of us to partition our brains a bit. Still, we had to keep the company operating. Everyone was in shock and feeling extremely vulnerable. There’s no playbook for what to do when your CEO-a beloved guy who’d been responsible for hiring many of the people gathered in that room-dies suddenly at age 47. We said that anyone who didn’t want to stay at work could go home. The board and the management team spoke about Dave’s death and the immediate plan for SurveyMonkey, but we were also open about our personal struggles with losing Dave. The next morning we held an all-hands meeting. The board convened with senior management on Sunday morning back at company headquarters. The subject line was “Our friend, Dave Goldberg.” I informed everyone that Dave had passed away and that we would have more information on Monday. Very early Saturday morning I wrote an e-mail to all 550 employees. When I returned to the hotel, after midnight, I called a few senior people at the company to let them know the shocking news. It was horrible and heartbreaking.ĭave was the CEO of SurveyMonkey, a company that was changing the way people gather feedback through online surveys. When I arrived at the hospital, I learned that he’d died. She and Dave’s brother, Rob, found him unconscious in the gym.

When we reconvened for a drink, Sheryl was looking for Dave. His wife, Sheryl Sandberg, stayed with the rest of us by the pool and dozed off.Īfter a while, we all went back to our rooms to shower and get ready for dinner. Dave Goldberg, one of my closest friends, decided to go to the gym. We spent Friday afternoon beside the pool at a resort, playing a board game. In May 2015 I flew to Mexico for a long weekend with a group of friends to celebrate one member’s birthday. They believe that when curiosity ebbs, people lapse into routine and complacency, exposing a company to disruption.

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When customers were asked what they valued most about the company’s offerings, and employees what excited them about coming to work every day, the word that came up most often was “curiosity.” Lurie and his team started encouraging and rewarding curiosity across the organization: celebrating the “question of the week” at town halls using a peer recognition program to reward people for their candor hosting the Goldie Speaker Series (named for the deceased CEO) to learn about success in other fields. While continuing to provide them with emotional support, Lurie set about defining the company culture.

His employees were still in the grip of grief, fear, and anxiety. As a member of the company’s board, Lurie first aided in the search for a replacement and then, after that person didn’t work out, assumed the role himself. Lurie took the helm at SurveyMonkey in the aftermath of tragedy: Dave Goldberg, the previous CEO and his longtime friend, had died suddenly at the age of 47.

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