I was stunned to hear this today. Nick was an amazing engineer and an even more amazing character and generous human.
One of those low key, behind-the-scenes, hidden masters of silicon valley (and silicon design more specifically), Nick had this larger-than-life personality with normal guy humility. Just reading a random mini bio of Nick's [1] gives you vintage Nick, a "seriously, don't make me talk about myself" kind of guy. Also the kind of guy with numerous oddball surplus vehicles and heavy machinery in the Santa Cruz mountains, which he'd happily fire up and tour any visitors around in.. I have fond memories of being "dumped" from a literal dump truck by Nick.
I wasn't sure the HN crowd would be familiar, but interestingly Nick had a post on the YC blog at some point, "An Engineer's View of Venture Capitalists" [2]. I don't know the content, but knowing Nick I'm sure it's pure "engineer's engineer" sort of stuff.
Nick's business cards -- "wars fought; bars emptied; used cars; also MEMS" -- were infamous, and were just another reason he inspired me very early on in life to.. not be bland. I'm still trying. Nick, you were an inspiration, one of a kind, and are very missed.
[1] https://www.computer.org/profiles/nick-tredennick
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6369357
