A Special Trail Run

I’m at the Breakthrough Institute’s annual meeting across the bay from San Francisco, and that means its time for a trail run up in the hills above the Golden Gate Bridge.

While I had a great run this year, it was bittersweet. Yesterday I learned of the passing of Kate Goldstein, who had just started to consult with us at Applied Minds. Kate died in an accident on a trip to India, where she was working on energy solutions for the local economy. Apparently she was on a trail run and slipped off of the slope into a deep ravine.

Kate and I had met this year at the ARPA-E meeting in DC, and she had started to help us with some complex energy problems that potential customers had brought to us. Kate’s outlook on life caused her to look for positive outcomes of complex societal problems, which was a great fit for our business.

Whenever we met, Kate and I would spend some time talking about our shared passion of running. She was a much more accomplished athlete than I, but her obvious joy in the simple act of getting out and going for a run transcended details like that, and shaped her approach to the world.

Kate was among a small number of people that I would refer to as “a force of nature”. Even though we’d only begun to work together, I already know that this world has experienced a significant loss, and the next world has had a signifcant gain.

God bless, and happy trails, Kate.