Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50

Posted by falsestprophet on Sunday June 28, 2009 @01:22PM
from the en.wikipedia.org dept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mays

( 13 comments | 15 points | on HN )

Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by mariorz on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:22PM (#677912)

please stop submitting or voting up stories like this. HN is not a place to read obituaries and it never leads to any kind of interesting discussion.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by JoeH on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:31PM (#677928)

A month ago I would have agreed with this statement, but after watching a couple episodes of the "Pitchmen" on the Discovery channel, I found Billy Mays and the whole process of promoting products very relevant to me as a startup founder.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by mariorz on Sunday June 28, 2009 @03:20PM (#677987)

the process of him decomposing under the earth is not relevant to you as a startup founder though.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by diego on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:30PM (#677926)

It depends on the person. If a prominent figure in the tech community dies, people might discuss interesting anecdotes and maybe first-hand accounts here. You can't have a hard-and-fast rule like that.

Also, it seems that people in general are a bit oversensitized right now regarding celebrity deaths. On Twitter at least Billy Mays is getting more mentions than Farrah Fawcett did.

http://twist.flaptor.com/?span=168&gram=billy+mays%2C+fa...

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by petercooper on Sunday June 28, 2009 @03:03PM (#677974)

Or Michael Jackson, clearly.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by davidalln on Sunday June 28, 2009 @01:40PM (#677865)

A bit more reputable source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obit_billy_mays

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by falsestprophet on Sunday June 28, 2009 @01:51PM (#677875)

I submitted the Wikipedia link so we could take a moment to learn a little from his life's work. After all, this may be the last time most of us hear about Billy Mays.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by davidalln on Sunday June 28, 2009 @01:54PM (#677878)

That's an excellent idea! However, I posted the AP source to official confirm this tragic news.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by edw519 on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:11PM (#677898)

"It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

Makes you wonder if the plane accident and the mysterious death hours later are related.

As a hacker, I'd like to believe in cause and effect. Finding out what caused these recent high profile deaths won't make them any less tragic, but may make the world a little less scary.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by johnswamps on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:11PM (#677897)

Ok, I can understand submitting Michael Jackson's death to HN, but Billy Mays? Come on.

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by vaksel on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:15PM (#677902)

marketing is related, and you gotta admit the dude could sell anything

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by bdmac97 on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:12PM (#677900)

I just saw him on Conan last week!

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Re:Entrepreneur and master pitchman Billy Mays dead at 50 by azsromej on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:26PM (#677917)

yeah, you can see him talking about being on the show http://twitter.com/realbillymays

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