Such incredibly sad news that he has passed away, I met Robert Virding a few years ago (small group of us went out for a meal). I had hardly heard of Erlang before, followed much more since, plus many of their talks. It's fascinating how physicists design a programming language/ system, especially the treading/ distribution model. I think it was WhatsApp the catapulted Erlang to the limelight (outside of telecoms), it's doubtful that they would have scaled so quickly had WhatsApp been written in anything else.

Rest in Peace Joe, and my condolences to his friends and family.