Post for: #ilan (3 Posts)

Fifteen years ago today, Moranne Amit was murdered.

I worked as a software engineer at Applicad from 1997 to 2000. Strange arrangement. Days belonged to the IDF. Nights to Applicad. Same job writing code, different desks. Sometimes I slept under one.

Moranne was the administrative assistant to the CEO. Brief conversations by the coffee machine. Quick mind. Sharp as hell.

One night, must have been '98, there was a critical bug blocking a release. Dror, Ilan, and me were the ones who had to fix it. Dror was a senior engineer, Ilan the VP R&D. They've since become like family. That night we were just three guys staring at screens, trying to make the impossible happen.

Moranne was the last person to leave the office besides us. It was already late.

About 30 minutes later, she walks back in. Doesn't say a word. Just puts down a bag of snacks and a couple packs of cigarettes on the desk. Turns around and leaves.

That's the kind of person she was. Small gestures. No fanfare.

A few years later, we had different kinds of conversations. Late nights, ICQ, just as friends, about love and relationships. Open, honest. She had this way of thinking about things. Sharp. Questioning. Never satisfied with simple answers.

Back in May, Matcha went dark. No announcement, no explanation. The app just disappeared.

Co-founder and CEO Guy Piekarz told TechCrunch they weren't shutting down, just heading in a new direction - a direction that was apparently causing things to break.

The hardest thing, by far, in the new direction we're going was taking down the service, which we've been building for the last couple of years. We apologize for dissappointing our users and plan to provide something better in the future.

That was it. We now know the shutdown and the acquisition were the same event - TechCrunch's sources say Apple had already closed the deal in May. The app going offline was the handover.

Today Apple confirmed it. VentureBeat broke the story. Standard response: they buy small companies, don't discuss plans.

I have a personal connection here. Ilan Ben-Zeev, Matcha's CTO and co-founder, is one of those people I consider extended family. I knew the algorithm was good. Now Apple knows it too.

Back from California.

We spent a few days in San Francisco. Pier 39. Lombard Street.

But the first stop was Ilan. He's one of those friends who are basically part of my extended family. Haven't seen him in years. Watching him and Orly meet each other for the first time was something I'd been looking forward to for a while.

Orly gave me a tour of Stanford, where she spent five intense and formative years. The grounds. Her old lab. Fellow researchers who still work there.

At one point she sat down on a sofa and told me she used to rest on it. Then her eyes lit up and she told me it was Philip Zimbardo's.

We'd been staying at Laura's apartment in the city. I'd heard a lot about her. It was great to finally meet in person. On the day of Passover eve we drove to her parents' house for the Seder.

The next morning we started our road trip headed east toward Sequoia. Laura drove.