I'm reminded of Gene Kan, but I am unsure if the circumstances are similar:

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

The similarities are that there was considerable press coverage of Diaspora and that they seemed, at least to me, destined to fail mostly just because it was a hard thing to do given their structure. It is a true shame that this individual took the failure personally as it wasn't at all his fault, again it was primarily structural in my opinion. Gene Kan I understand was somewhat susceptible for other reasons to depression.