David Goldberg, husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, dies

[SAN FRANCISCO] SurveyMonkey.com Chief Executive Officer David Goldberg died May 1 after collapsing and hitting his head while exercising, according to people briefed on the matter.

Goldberg, 47, who was married to Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, was vacationing at the Four Seasons in Punta Mita, Mexico with family and friends at the time, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a personal matter.

Mr Goldberg suffered cranial trauma after he fell from a treadmill in the resort's gym, according to a spokesman for the state attorney general's office in Nayarit, Mexico. Efforts to revive him at the gym and at a nearby hospital were unsuccessful and Mr Goldberg died at the hospital, the attorney general's office said.

Mr Goldberg, a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist, founded Launch Media, an online music site, in 1994, and sold it to Yahoo! Inc amid the dot-com bust of 2001. Billboard magazine named him one of the top "power players" in digital music in 2006. He joined SurveyMonkey, a Palo Alto, California-based online polling service, in 2009, and helped build it into a company valued at about US$2 billion in December.

Sandberg, 45, author of the best-selling book "Lean In," frequently credited Goldberg as a crucial partner in her career. The couple, who have two children, met in 1996 while working in Los Angeles, according to a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Goldberg's funeral is scheduled for Tuesday.

The circumstances of his death were previously reported by the technology blog Re/code.

Family History Goldberg was born on Oct 2, 1967, in Minneapolis, to Mel and Paula Goldberg. His mother is co-founder and executive director of the Pacer Center, a Minnesota nonprofit group that assists parents of disabled children and young adults, according to the center's website. His father was an associate dean and professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.

Mr Goldberg graduated from Harvard University in 1989 and lived with Sandberg and their children in Menlo Park, California.

Goldberg's Facebook page has filled with anecdotes and condolences since his death was announced May 2.

"Dave was a class act," Bob Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Co, wrote. "Everything he did was done with enthusiasm, commitment, and a warm and humble touch that we all loved and we will all remember."

"Dave was one of the truly rare souls - a good and caring person in a brutal and often callous business world," wrote David Sze of Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm. "I admired him greatly for his combination of success and humility."

BLOOMBERG