I met Juraj in 2006 at Microsoft, back when I was a software engineer fresh out of college working on Office. Arguably the most complex and riskiest feature I ever worked on was refactoring all the code underlying one of the signature products. My manager encouraged me to talk to everyone on the team and ask for feedback, so one day I knocked Juraj’s door and asked for his thoughts. We discussed the problem at hand and came up with a really clever solution. I could talk for hours about why this was an unconventional and clever solution, but that’s beside the point. In that first meeting, Juraj made me believe I could be a hero. I had fun, I laughed, and I walked out of his office with a huge smile, feeling as though I had just solved one of the toughest engineering problems all on my own. It gave me the strength and confidence to tackle many more product challenges in the decades that followed. I felt like an engineer who could conquer anything. Little did I know, this was all to Juraj’s credit. Juraj didn’t take credit for solving that problem. I didn’t even realize it was all thanks to him. He gave me all the credit. Juraj would never take credit. He never proactevely told management when he helped someone. He was humble and would downplay his accomplishments as trivial. I’m confident he never asked for a promotion. I’m sure when asked, he would have encouraged others to be promoted before him. He worked hard, he solved the problems others wouldn’t touch, and the problems management wasn’t even aware of. I left my job at RStudio to start Hal9. I began with no funding, no team, no plan, and frankly no idea what I was doing. I knocked hundreds, if not thousands of doors, asking for help. The responses back then were always the same: we won’t fund your startup, we won’t buy your product, we don’t believe this will work. Juraj was the first person to reach out to me proactively and ask, “How can I help?” He contacted me in March 2021, just weeks after I quit my job in January 2021. Juraj didn’t ask for a pitch deck, an engineering plan, market size, or exit strategy. All he needed to know was that a struggling engineer was in desperate need of help, lost in the dark without even realizing it. Juraj offered help to our startup when it was needed most, when we had nothing to offer in return. Frankly, when no one should have offered help. Juraj is no longer with us. I know Juraj wouldn’t have wanted me to write this post. Expecting a post expressing our gratitude would have implied that his help had some small ulterior motive, making it less than 100% pure, less than completely selfless, less than truly Juraj. Juraj was a selfless hero — He gave everything in this life, expecting nothing in return. Your legacy in this life was not measured in wealth, fame, intelligence, or success. You were, frankly, above all that. I aspire to live life more like you, Juraj. You were our advisor, our mentor, our cheerleader, our role model, and above all, our friend. We will truly miss you, Juraj.