Dave Goldberg, tech guru and husband of Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, dies at 47

Dave Goldberg, the chief executive of SurveyMonkey and the husband of Sheryl K Sandberg of Facebook, died on Friday night. He was 47.

Goldberg was a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist. His death was confirmed by SurveyMonkey, which is known for its web-based survey technology.

The company did not disclose the cause of death. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook and a friend of the family, said it occurred while Goldberg was on vacation abroad with Sandberg.

His brother, Robert Goldberg, shared news of his death in a Facebook post and urged people who knew him to post memories and pictures on Goldberg's memorial Facebook profile. Tributes poured in there and elsewhere online from hundreds of people who knew Goldberg as a mentor, colleague or friend.

"To this day, he is the leader and person by which I measure all others," Karin Gilford, a top executive at Disney ABC Television Group who worked with Goldberg at a previous start-up and at Yahoo, wrote on his Facebook page. "Dave, I will never ever forget the way you made me feel and the confidence you poured into me that has lasted my entire career. It is hard to imagine this world without you."

Goldberg lived with his wife, Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, in Menlo Park, Calif. They have two children. He is also survived by his mother, Paula Goldberg. In a statement, SurveyMonkey said: "Dave's genius, courage and leadership were overshadowed only by his compassion, friendship and heart. Our sympathy goes out to them and to all who were touched by this extraordinary man. We are all heartbroken."

Goldberg was always quick with a wisecrack, and he kept a sense of humor about being the less famous half of one of Silicon Valley's pre-eminent power couples. Sandberg, who achieved global fame with her book "Lean In," about the challenges faced by women in the workplace, often said she would not have been as successful in her career without his substantial assistance at home.

"We made the decision on this particular thing, that we are going to be home with our kids. I am at home with my kids from six to eight," he told The Los Angeles Times in 2013. "But we're working at night. You'll get plenty of emails from me after 8 pm when my kids go to bed."

Goldberg's unexpected death touched many at Facebook and across the technology industry. "We are heartbroken by this news," Facebook said in a statement.

Goldberg joined SurveyMonkey in 2009 after stints at Benchmark Capital and Yahoo.

At the time, the company had 14 employees. He built it into a provider of web surveys on almost every topic imaginable, be it customer service or politics, with 500 employees and 25 million surveys created. News reports said it was valued at nearly $2 billion when it raised a round of funding last year.

"Online surveys have come a long way," he said in a lunch interview last month. "We have investors use it to figure out things like the customer churn at Netflix, what Ugg sales are doing."

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Goldberg was particularly proud of his company's ability to predict election results through its surveys, noting that SurveyMonkey was sometimes more accurate than traditional pollsters.

He viewed online surveys as an inexpensive way for companies to gather data about their customers and competitors.

©2015 The New York Times News Service