Adventurous Silicon Valley software guru killed in Brazil

Adventurous Silicon Valley software guru killed in Brazil
Michael Kanaley, 41, was a principal architect at TIBCO Software in... ( Courtesy of Ken Manning )

Michael Kanaley rode his motorcycle in thunderstorms, backpacked through Pakistan and told his Palo Alto software company that he was moving to Brazil. He persuaded his boss to let him keep his job and jet to Silicon Valley for monthly meetings.

It was the perfect lifestyle for an adventurous spirit — until somebody shot the 41-year-old father of two in the face, killing him in a resort town near his adopted home of Rio de Janeiro.

Now, friends here are mourning the tragic death of Kanaley, a principal architect at Palo Alto's Tibco Software.

"Every one of us wants to live their life that way, but we often let fear overtake us," said longtime friend Larry Neumann, a marketing executive at Solace Systems in Mountain View. "Not Mike."

His brother, Jim Kanaley, of Salt Lake City, told the Mercury News that his younger brother was driving on the morning of Jan. 5 from a hotel in the town of Buzios to see an attorney; he was looking to buy a new place in the wake of a breakup with his longtime girlfriend.

According to news reports from Brazil, Kanaley was headed back Rio de Janeiro when he was shot in the face. His rental car was discovered torched down the road. His wallet and computer were stolen.

Jim Kanaley said he's since been communicating with local police and FBI agents in Brazil to figure out who would have killed such a "talented Internet geek." He added his brother, who moved to Rio in 2004, was worth "millions,"
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including the properties he owned, earning power and stock.

Michael Kanaley leaves behind two daughters, ages 9 and 4, whom he had with Mara Moreira, who was from Brazil and had once worked at Tibco in Palo Alto, too. Jim Kanaley said his brother had never married Moreira; after 10 years together, they had decided to separate. They were in the process of splitting assets and figuring out child custody issues at the time of his death.

"His girls were his world," Jim Kanaley said.

At least three separate memorials have been held for Kanaley. The first was with about 100 friends in San Francisco, where he lived since 1991 after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and being hired by Oracle. Friends remembered him as a track star who loved annual Burning Man trips, dyed his hair crazy colors and frequently changed styles from bearded hippie to closely shaved, played pickup soccer games at Stanford University on lunch breaks, and stood out in a crowd with his trademark baggy red pants and bright Indian shirts.

"There was a rumor that he once skateboarded from San Francisco to work at Tibco," said friend Ken Manning. "I never knew if it was true, but you could believe it."

The next service was held in Rochester, N.Y., where Kanaley was born — the youngest of four children — and where his parents had lived for many years.

The final service was held in Palo Alto at Tibco, where Kanaley was considered a "guru" who had a hand in the design of most of the company's real-time business integration software.

Bill Hughes, Tibco's executive vice president of human resources, said Kanaley's death was a "terrible tragedy. He was not only an invaluable co-worker, but a friend to all of us at Tibco. People here will remember how he livened up the office with his unique style of dreadlocks and brightly colored clothes. Mike was one of Tibco's brightest minds, and he had a gentle soul who made those around him better. He will be greatly missed."

Kanaley went to work for Tibco more than 10 years ago after the company bought a startup he cofounded, inCommon. Neumann said he had a tough time keeping up with his world-traveling friend, someone who wanted to party at off-the-beaten-track-nightclubs in Brazil just because they were located in the most dangerous spots in the country.

"But he wasn't trying hard to be cool," Neumann said. "He had this authenticity about him. He'd spend a half an hour talking to someone's parents at a party. People trying to be cool don't do that."

Friends marveled that Kanaley could be an engineer by day, and a photographer, artist, athlete, outdoorsman and father after work.

"He was a lot in one person," Neumann said. "People tend to gloss this stuff up when people pass on and not remember the bad parts. But I can't think of any bad parts."