He was the multimillionaire software visionary that created the Zip file format still used almost universally to this day. And now, at the age of just 37, Phil Katz was dead. His life came to an inglorious ending in a lonely hotel room somewhere in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. He had a home nearby, and the cops had been summoned to it at least once before when neighbors complained of odors, insects, and mice infesting the neighboring luxury apartments. Once inside, the police were confronted with knee-deep garbage, decaying food scraps, and much more. When they later found his lifeless body slumped against a nightstand in that dingy south side hotel room, he was still cradling an empty bottle of liquor. A half dozen similar bottles littered the room. He was completely alone now, having long since been estranged from his family and now virtually a stranger even to the employees of his own company. His body could no longer sustain the abuse from years of chronic alcoholism, and he died alone that night of acute pancreatic bleeding. The Dark History of Zip Files: you might already know that I wrote the Zip file support that's been in Windows for about 30 years... But I had nothing to do with the creation of the Zip format, which goes back to Phil Katz. This is his tragic and cautionary tale... as told by me. I never met Phil before he died. I'd like to think that before he started his descent into darkness, we'd have a lot to talk about.