Jim Gilliam, the founder and executive chairman of NationBuilder, passed away on Friday, November 23, 2018 after battling cancer and related complications. A brilliant entrepreneur and engineer, Jim was known for his belief that, “God is just what happens when humanity is connected.” His insistence that everyone has something unique they are meant to contribute to the world fueled his work and inspired thousands of people all over the globe.
What more can l say!¡!!!!!!!
I still think about some of the points he made back then (likely 2016 or 2017), and went to see what he was up to and figured he may have succumbed to his sickness. The world has truly lost out, as he was phenomenally brilliant, and he’s still not forgotten to a complete stranger 12-5-19. It greatly saddens me that we don’t have his wisdom to consult in an ever-changing world. He is truly missed.
I joined NationBuilder because I was inspired by Jim. I met Jim and felt immediately intimidated and engaged by him. Watching him lead the company through tough and beautiful times has been an all consuming ride. Being part of this community, of the people he and Lea brought together, this wonderful group of problem solvers, go getters, organizers, empaths, story tellers — creators, has been a joy of my life.
When I considered applying to the Product Team, I’m not going to lie, I had major hesitations about working more closely with Jim. When I interviewed, Jim grilled me about what I believed the product could be and why it was important to me. It seemed to me that he cared so much about not just what you could do, but why you do it. We chatted about books, the future, and Taylor Swift.
That interview is a precious memory for me. Not because it was a particularly meaningful conversation but because I was really nervous and in the end, all that really mattered was that I was myself. It strikes me that actually that was the thing Jim respected more than anything else, was when people were their true, authentic selves. It’s such a treasure in this world to find people like that that it’s almost jarring when you do.
Jim has been absent from NationBuilder daily operations for a couple years now, and I never ended up really getting the opportunity to work closely with him. Except that I do. I work with Jim every day because I use NationBuilder. NationBuilder is basically Jim’s brain on a rails app. All the weird intricacies that can seem disparate but ultimately tie together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. That is the NationBuilder product and that is the company too. It’s more than any one of us, it’s more than Jim, it’s all of us, creating together, and I think that is his most beautiful contribution.