The founder of one of the world’s most popular websites was found dead under mysterious circumstances in his university office, hours after emailing accusations that school officials were trying to undermine him. Marshall Brian II, 63, educator and creator of HowStuffWorks, was found dead in his North Carolina State University office at 7 am on Nov. 20.
His wife, Leigh Ann, had requested a welfare check, according to The Technician, the university’s student newspaper. However, just two hours before his death, around 4:30 a.m., Brian had sent an email to his colleagues, alleging that two department heads had retaliated against him in response to several ethics complaints he had filed.
Mysterious Death
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“If you are receiving this email, you are a friend and colleague of mine,” he wrote, the News & Observer reports. “Today, I would like to ask for a few minutes of your time so that I can tell you a story.”
The cause of death has not yet been released by the authorities.
Brian went on to say that he had no intention of retiring, contrary to what Stephen Markham, the executive director of NC State Innovation and Entrepreneurship, suggested in an internal email dated November 6.
“I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the University,’ the beloved professor wrote.
“The fact is that I am not “retiring.” Instead, NC State terminated me on October 29.”
Brian claimed in his email that Veena Misra, head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, retaliated against him after he filed ethics complaints about her and confronted her directly regarding his concerns.
According to The Technician, Brian’s email accused Misra of misconduct, including dishonesty, incompetence, withholding information, acting in bad faith, and engaging in unethical behavior. These allegations stemmed from a dispute in August over the decision to repurpose the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program meeting space for a new hire.
“What came back was a sickening nuclear bomb of retaliation, the likes of which could not be believed,” the professor continued.
“[Misra] ex-communicated me from my department for reporting my concerns to her.”
Dirty Politics
Brian said he received an email a few weeks after submitting his ethics complaints from Srinath Ekkad, head of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, informing him that the department would no longer recommend students for his Engineering Entrepreneurs Program.
In response, Brian claimed that Markham later told him he would face disciplinary action for “unacceptable behavior.”
Brian further expressed that he felt the university’s ethics complaint process was not being properly utilized to address his issues.
Brandon Kashani, a former student of Brian’s and one of the email recipients, said that he had filed several complaints through the university’s EthicsPoint system and suggested that the tensions in the department were due to Brian’s refusal to “play the political game.”
“Marshall was caught in an imbalanced group of people with more power than him and they didn’t like him calling them out,” Kashani told the student newspaper.
Brian was born in Santa Monica, California, and was greatly influenced by his father’s work on designing components for NASA’s lunar lander and later on the development of Atlanta’s MARTA system, according to his online obituary.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and later a Master of Science in Computer Science from NC State, where he first met Leigh Ann.
Together, they had four children: David, Irena, Jonny, and Ian, and Brian took a job as a computer science professor.
He held that position until 1992 when he founded Interface Technologies, a software company, after achieving success with a website he created with his wife. The site featured simple, scientific explanations of how everyday devices worked.
Early topics on HowStuffWorks.com included VCRs, airplanes, and car engines, and it soon grew into one of the 1,000 most visited websites globally, according to the News & Observer. By 1998, the site was attracting 10,000 visitors per day, and by 2000, it had grown to 33,000 visitors daily.
By the early 2000s, HowStuffWorks had become a major brand with 20 employees and began distributing a free magazine to 10,000 schools.
Brian sold the company in 2002 to the Convex Group, and five years later, Discovery Communications acquired it for $250 million.
Following the sale, Brian continued his work in educational media, producing a series for The National Geographic Channel called Factory Floor, which showed the behind-the-scenes manufacturing of everyday products. He also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 to explain the workings of television.
In addition, Brian authored over a dozen books and wrote articles for the News & Observer on various topics, including dividends and humidifiers.
