William B. Ziff, Jr. died Saturday at his home in Pawling, NY. Many of you may not realize it, but I worked for various companies within the Ziff empire from about 1978 through 1996 or so. I learned how magazines work and about magazine publishing from the Ziff model and a lot of the Ziff publishing formula made it into the ZATZ DNA. Although I never met William Ziff, I do feel a debt of gratitude to him and his companies for teaching me the business. Without those learnings, ZATZ wouldn’t be here and all of you wouldn’t have had the chance to read all the great articles we’ve had the honor of publishing. Our condolences go out to the family. — David