Dave Selinger, Redfin’s founding CTO and now the CEO of RichRelevance, contacted us today with news that one of the original developers of Redfin’s website, Daniel Phommathep, passed away this morning. Below is Dave’s soulful tribute to Daniel. May Daniel rest in peace.
Friends and Fans of Redfin,
This morning Daniel Phommathep, one of the great original sources of energy that brought Redfin from amorphous ideas and sketches to a reality, passed away after losing a two-month battle with cancer. At only 30 years old, his passing is a tremendous loss for the Redfin community and a tragedy for his entire family including his wife and three beautiful children.
Daniel was one of the ten software engineers who moonlighted to develop the original website during the summer of 2004. We each worked our day-jobs, grabbed a quick dinner and then banged away on laptops and servers in my Harbor Steps apartment late into the evening—frequently past 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. Daniel was a constant source of energy for the team and a motivator when we needed an “oomph” to push ourselves that extra mile (when even 3 Cokes, 2 Mountain Dew’s and a Redbull weren’t quite enough). We all worked for stock with no monetary compensation that whole summer because we believed so strongly in the vision of Redfin—we became a team and a family bound not only by our work, but by our passion. Through all of this, Daniel became one of my closest friends.
The Redfin site and experience that we’ve all come to know and love is in large part a tribute to the legacy of Daniel Phommathep. Today, let’s take a moment to honor Dan and his contributions to our lives, to say a prayer for his family, and to remember how utterly fragile our lives are and how precious each moment is in living.
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