Dave Goldberg, the chief executive of SurveyMonkey and husband of Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, died of head trauma Friday night after he collapsed at the gym at a private resort in Mexico, according to a Mexican government official. . . .Dozens of scenarios spring to mind, none of them involving accidentally falling off a treadmill. I know people die in freak accidents every day, but are we supposed to take the word of the Mexican police?
Mr. Goldberg left his room around 4 p.m. on Friday, collapsed while exercising and died of head trauma and blood loss, said the spokesman. His brother, Robert Goldberg, found him on the floor of a gym at around 7 p.m., with blood around him. The spokesman said it appeared “he fell off the treadmill and cracked his head open.”
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The Mysterious Death of Dave Goldberg
Really?
Occam's Razor and all...
ReplyDeleteWhat possible motive would there be for foul play?
I've never heard of Mr. Goldberg or SurveyMonkey, although a quick google search tells me it's a company that provides online surveys, with a revenue of $113. Not the sort of business endeavor that engenders political friction, or even corporate espionage. His connection to Facebook is somewhat higher profile, but again, not exactly the sort of thing that gets a person assassinated or anything.
Unless he was dealing in or threatening the trade of cocaine or slaves or similar (unlikely), the cartels wouldn't have any interest in Mr. Goldberg. Unless he was some sort of political dissident (not to my knowledge), the Mexican government wouldn't have any interest. So who the heck would kill the guy and try to make it look accidental? What reasonable motive is there? A pissed off bellhop he undertipped or something?
I'm all for skepticism, but only in the presence of other plausible explanations. In this situation, the most likely course of events seems to be the one reported. So I'm not sure why the skepticism here?
If he had gotten in a car accident, would you be equally skeptical? Is it the "unusual nature" of the death that prompts you to doubt? Because people fall from small heights and hit their heads and die all the time. It's not unusual at all - just unglamorous. It's a rather common accident, rather than a freak one.
And if not that, then what aspect of this story leads you to doubt? Because I'm not seeing much reason to suspect anything more than simple misfortune.
He got dizzy-- or he had a heart attack or stroke-- and fell off the treadmill, hitting head, etc etc etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm with G. on this: I doubt a conspiracy.
I'm with John, however, in being rather skeptical of the reportage.
The human brain is great at inventing stories to explain random tragedies, and the less we know, the more likely it is that we'll invent stories that match our fiction.
ReplyDeleteSo it is normal to jump to the idea of foul play, but it is not always helpful.
There was a lot of conspiracies about Harry Reid's recent facial injuries, also publicly blamed on an exercise accident, and a Las Vegas man decided to punk right wingers with a bogus and unsourced rumor giving a "real" explanation for the bruises.