Developer of peer-to-peer file sharing software GNUTELLA found shot dead.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020709/ap_on_hi_te/kan_profile_2 ^

[GingisK]

Just goes to shot that money and success does not necessarily translate into happiness.

Oh, yes, I wish I could be Richard Corey!

[Freebird Forever]

Oh yes eddie, THUGS!! There is a book out about Death Row Records( the name escapes me at this moment, which records the doings of Suge Knight, let's just say this guy is no Col. Tom Parker or Brian Epstein, give you a hint, there were times when Knight and his friends in the Bloods, would get some poor soul, and have him beaten up, right in the middle of the offices of Death Row Records. Very entertaining and scary reading.

This is a very old and long on-going thing, as well. When the lead members, the actual songwriters that were part of the group "Chic" found out that the Sugar Hill Gang had stolen the instrumentals from "Good Times" to use for their "Rappers Delight" (back in 1979), they naturally asked them to stop stealing their work. The Sugar Hill Gangs response was to send armed thungs out and threaten the poor guys. Fortunately, Chic's lawyer had Mafia connections, and enough pressure was brought to bear on the Sugar Hill Gang; a compromise was reached, and the two songwriters got half a mill in cash on the QT.....

I seem to recall that Led Zepplins manager had quite a reputation for thuggery as well.

[monkeyshine]

I'm not sure he even made any money. Maybe he was cleaning his gun with a chamber in the round.

[monkeyshine]

Music mafia?

Michael Jackson did say that Tony Matolla is "mean, racist and very devilish."

[beckett]

A lifetime, even a short lifetime, buried in code can cause severe alienation. Despite the appeal of tin foil theories, I tend to think that a syndrome not very uncommon in godless geekdom --- i.e., existential-crisis/nerd-misanthropy --- best explains this tragedy.

[eno_]

Well, since Jack Vallenti probably was invovled in the JFK assasination, this would be small-time by comparison

[daviddennis]

I strongly suspect you hit the nail on the head - it would have been very easy for him to go seriously bust if he didn't sell a good percentage of his stock straight away.

These pierced bubble years are no good for any tech companies, I fear :-(.

D

[fella]

Was his gun made up of untraceable parts from a number of other guns?

[anymouse]

Must have been a hit by that Hollywood "Gay Mafia" that Ovitz was talking about ;)