Remembering Neil

This post is dedicated to my colleague and friend Neil Latarche who passed away recently. Neil and I overlapped at Verity (a company no longer exists) where we were partners-in-crime on some very interesting projects.

Neil loved working on his house, he enjoyed furniture shopping; saving up for his dream backyard to make it "ridiculous"!

Neil was a brilliant engineer. He wrote video games as a teenager and went on built one of the most successful enterprise search software in the world: K2. He was the only engineer I know that was credited on IMDB. When you think about old-school hackers living in the valley, he was it!

On the personal side, Neil was kind and sweet. Neil loved playing with children, teaching them games and puzzles. My overly-shy daughter would ask for him after having just met him once, which was really a miracle.

For those of us that got to know Neil, we became better people. For me, having had the long hours of pair-coding sessions with him, I have become a better engineer. One thing notable I have witnessed while working with Neil was that how he never was intimidated problems nor was he distracted by their difficulties. To him, solving problems, no matter how challenging, are simply routine tasks. This is something I would take with me on my journey.

I will miss Neil. I will miss coding with him; I will miss his British lingos; I will miss arguing with him which is the best Chinese restaurant on Castro street in Mountain View (where we once ordered 5 Kung-Pao chickens at Hangen)

Larsh, you will be remembered, R.I.P.!

Neil as a teenager. At 18, he's written and sold 2 computer games.