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On February 9th, Kinara Wilhelm will be 1. In 17 years she will have the opportunity to attend college. Let's make sure she has that opportunity and that Cliff's memory will live on in Kinara's education.
In August of 2011, I was hired by a small music streaming startup in Berkeley to run operations. When I started at MOG I inherited a team of two sysadmins - one of them was Cliff Wilhelm. I knew from the first time I met him that he was going to be an invaluable member of the team. Since that time Cliff and I ran MOG in the US side by side, trading on call duties and maintaining the aging MOG US infrastructure with baling wire, chicken schmaltz, and silly putty. Together we launched MOG in Australia while navigating time zones and the always delightful contortions of dealing with carrier telcos. We moved offices to RocketSpace in SF and continued to run MOG as the company morphed into Daisy and then officially into Beats Music. As the ops team grew, Cliff remained an integral part of the team, stewarding MOG while contributing to the new build out to support Daisy. He shared the same battle scars from last year with the rest of us as we finally pushed Beats Music 1.0 out the door, stumbles, crashes, medical emergencies, tears and all. At one point during the initial days after launch, as I finally broke down in utter fatigue, Cliff was there with a reassuring calm that seemed freakishly out of place yet somehow perfectly suited for what we all needed at that time. After coming through all of that our bond as colleagues and as friends was cemented. We gleefully presided over the decommissioning of the MOG US datacenter, both of us giddy as we drove the 15 foot Ryder truck down 3rd street saying goodbye to 200 Pual for good. We carried on through the Apple acquisition all the while still running two discreet streaming music services on opposite sides of the world. Together Cliff and I rode this train from Berkeley to San Francisco to Cupertino and now I must continue the rest of this journey with out him. We were hat brothers he and I and though at some point I lost my hat, his remained in place even in his apple ID picture.
There is now a hole in our team that will never be filled. I have lost a friend, a colleague, an accomplice and it hurts. My thoughts are with Cliff’s family, his wife and baby girl, Kinara who has yet to see her first birthday. May she one day know as I have, what a good person and a true friend her father was.
May his memory be a blessing. He will be missed tremendously by his many friends and colleagues.
It isn't possible for me to reach everyone who has worked with Cliff over his years at Beats Music and MOG so please forward this message as appropriate.
In August of 2011, I was hired by a small music streaming startup in Berkeley to run operations. When I started at MOG I inherited a team of two sysadmins - one of them was Cliff Wilhelm. I knew from the first time I met him that he was going to be an invaluable member of the team. Since that time Cliff and I ran MOG in the US side by side, trading on call duties and maintaining the aging MOG US infrastructure with baling wire, chicken schmaltz, and silly putty. Together we launched MOG in Australia while navigating time zones and the always delightful contortions of dealing with carrier telcos. We moved offices to RocketSpace in SF and continued to run MOG as the company morphed into Daisy and then officially into Beats Music. As the ops team grew, Cliff remained an integral part of the team, stewarding MOG while contributing to the new build out to support Daisy. He shared the same battle scars from last year with the rest of us as we finally pushed Beats Music 1.0 out the door, stumbles, crashes, medical emergencies, tears and all. At one point during the initial days after launch, as I finally broke down in utter fatigue, Cliff was there with a reassuring calm that seemed freakishly out of place yet somehow perfectly suited for what we all needed at that time. After coming through all of that our bond as colleagues and as friends was cemented. We gleefully presided over the decommissioning of the MOG US datacenter, both of us giddy as we drove the 15 foot Ryder truck down 3rd street saying goodbye to 200 Pual for good. We carried on through the Apple acquisition all the while still running two discreet streaming music services on opposite sides of the world. Together Cliff and I rode this train from Berkeley to San Francisco to Cupertino and now I must continue the rest of this journey with out him. We were hat brothers he and I and though at some point I lost my hat, his remained in place even in his apple ID picture.
There is now a hole in our team that will never be filled. I have lost a friend, a colleague, an accomplice and it hurts. My thoughts are with Cliff’s family, his wife and baby girl, Kinara who has yet to see her first birthday. May she one day know as I have, what a good person and a true friend her father was.
May his memory be a blessing. He will be missed tremendously by his many friends and colleagues.
It isn't possible for me to reach everyone who has worked with Cliff over his years at Beats Music and MOG so please forward this message as appropriate.