Larry Nelson, a very close friend, passed away on Friday.
If you don’t know Larry, he was a super positive participant in the Boulder and the Denver startup communities for many years. He and his wife Pat produced w3w3.com well before podcasts were trendy (Larry and Pat referred to it as “Internet Talk Radio.”) I always thought of Larry and Pat as the encouraging storytellers of the Boulder and the Denver startup communities.
Going back to some time in the late 1990s, Larry and Pat started showing up at every event I can remember participating in, which were a lot. I’d be doing a thing and there was Larry and Pat, with their cameras and their microphones. They took it all in, took tons of photos, and always wrote up interesting stuff about what was going on.
Larry was a master interviewer before everyone in tech started being a podcast host or a podcast guest. “This is Larry Nelson of w3w3.com” sticks in my mind. I enjoyed my interviews with Larry – he always made me laugh, made me feel loved, and brought out good stories. He was relentless and tireless in a way that made me say yes to everything he asked.
At some point, I started spending some social time with Larry and Pat. I introduced them to my parents, who became good friends with them. Everyone I knew liked them and welcomed them wherever they went. Over time, I (and many others) started calling Larry “Lord Nelson.” I can’t remember where the nickname came from, but my greeting to him went as follows.
Brad: Hey Lord Nelson, how are you today?
Larry: Magnificent!
I never, ever got tired of that greeting.
Larry became ill recently and ended up in the hospital. I talked to him several times a week for the past few weeks, checking in on him, laughing, and hearing him respond to my greeting with “Magnificent!” even though I knew he was suffering.
Larry – I love you. I will miss you. But I will think of you often. You were a magnificent human.