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When My Cofounder Died, It Showed Me How to Run My Company

He left me the book 'Life Is Short,' and its lessons became a guiding principle for everything I do.

By Tracy Young •

This story appears in the March 2023 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Image Credit: Courtesy of Tracy Young

In the early days of my first startup, PlanGrid, our cofounder Antoine Hersen — who was only 29 at the time — died of cancer. We lived and worked from a house in Sunnyvale together, and he programmed until his last days.

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