Someone I am close with worked briefly as a contractor with the spam team (I didn't work on that team but was a contractor on another team at the time). I heard nothing but good things about how kind he was to the contractors... and that was greatly appreciated as contractors are sometimes treated... well, differently.

At the time I wasn't involved in SEO in particular although my background was in search. After hearing how cool he was, I started following him. His videos were so engaging, interesting and easy to understand. Pretty quickly thereafter I was convinced I wanted to specialize in SEO, especially technical SEO. I absorbed all things Matt... videos, posts... if Matt said it, I was on it! He seemed like he really cared about his audience. Before long I felt like I was learning SEO from an old friend.

I have personally experienced a great deal of loss in the past few years. When I read about Matt's loss, I wept. I felt like I had sort of known him for years, even though we had never met.

Matt, keep shining your bright light. Thank you so much for all you've given to the search community.