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The tributes are flowing in for Silicon Valley legend Bill Campbell

Bill Campbell, former Apple board member and famous Silicon Valley coach, has died after a long battle with cancer.

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He had been nicknamed "The Coach" around Silicon Valley because of his close friendships with various valley CEOs, such as Apple founder Steve Jobs and Google's Larry Page, and because before his career in technology, he was a football coach at Columbia University.

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Campbell was a longtime Jobs confidant, and had served on Apple's board of directors for 17 years before he stepped down in 2014. He had also served as CEO of Intuit. He had worked in several key positions valley companies like Apple, Apple subsidiary Claris, and Go.

Campbell's family confirmed his death in a statement, issued through venture capital firm KPCB: 

Bill Campbell passed peacefully in his sleep after a long battle with cancer. The family appreciates all the love and support but asks for privacy at this time.

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Venture capitalist and KPCB partner John Doerr paid tribute in a series of tweets: 

 

 

“Growth is the goal and growth comes through having innovation. Innovation comes through having great engineers, not great product-marketing guys," Campbell once told Charlie Munger

Apple's statement: 

Venture capitalist Bill Gurley told Fortune in 2008 that "when you have Bill coaching the entrepreneurs, it's like having extra wildcards in a game of five-card draw."

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"His contribution to Google - it is literally not possible to overstate. He essentially architected the organizational structure," former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said about Campbell in 2008

 When a valley CEO wanted his advice, coaching sessions would "often occur over beers and chicken wings at the Old Pro, a sports-themed bar Campbell owns in downtown Palo Alto," Fortune reported in 2014.

In fact, there was a period of time where he was both on the Apple board and Google's board simultaneously. “Steve would say, ‘If you’re helping them you’re hurting me.’ He would yell at me,” Campbell told Fortune. “I’d say, ‘I can’t do HTML, come on. I’m just coaching them on how to run their company better.’”

Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo gave Campbell high praise:

Eric Schmidt, who served ten years as Google's CEO and is now the Executive Chairman of Google parent company Alphabet:

Schmidt expanded on Campbell's contributions to Google in a Google+ post:

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong:

 John Lilly, a VC at Greylock, had this to say:

 Other elite VC firms have noted the death of a legend: 

Andreesen Horowitz's Ben Horowitz wrote a Medium post recounting a few very personal stories:

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Today people will recount his many massive accomplishments as well as his unparalleled influence on the development of the greatest leaders in the technology industry such as Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Steve Jobs. They will speak about the unlimited energy he applied in helping others — from the poor kids in hometown of Homestead, Pennsylvania to the students at Columbia University. And all of it will be so well deserved. But I don’t feel like talking about any of that.

Apple CEO remembers Campbell:

Phil Schiller, who worked with Campbell on Apple marketing efforts, tweeted a short note: 

Jeff Bezos of Amazon praised him as well:

If you want a sense of what Campbell was like, here's an hour-long video of him sharing leadership tips alongside Intuit CEO Brad Smith. It's from April 2013.

 

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