Snippet: The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder ☇

Sandra Upson for Wired:

In Cloudflare’s early years, Lee Holloway had been the resident genius, the guy who could focus for hours, code pouring from his fingertips while death metal blasted in his headphones. He was the master architect whose vision had guided what began as a literal sketch on a napkin into a tech giant with some 1,200 employees and 83,000 paying customers. He laid the groundwork for a system that now handles more than 10 percent of all internet requests and blocks billions of cyberthreats per day. Much of the architecture he dreamed up is still in place.

But some years before the IPO, his behavior began to change. He lost interest in his projects and coworkers. He stopped paying attention in meetings. His colleagues noticed he was growing increasingly rigid and belligerent, resisting others’ ideas, and ignoring their feedback.

Heartbreaking, but well worth your time to read the entire piece.