The sudden death of Dave Goldberg, husband to Facebook star Sheryl Sandberg and a guy adored by much of Silicon Valley, left behind not only family and friends reeling from grief. He left behind a company of 500 employees that now must figure out how to cope with the loss of its leader.

SurveyMonkey launched in 1999 and flourished under Goldberg's leadership after he joined in 2009. But can its remaining employees realize the company's vision without the company's visionary?

Sudden, jarring CEO deaths are rare. The death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011 was, while transformational in the tech world in its own right, not unexpected, given his long battle with pancreatic cancer.

But Goldberg's death Friday was not an event anyone saw coming. The 47-year-old apparently slipped on a treadmill at a resort in Mexico where his family was vacationing, fell and hit his head. He died of head trauma and blood loss, Mexican authorities said.

The task SurveyMonkey faces is to choose a replacement CEO and reorganize the executive ranks without any political infighting or delay, and assess what its employees need to heal, say grief coaches and tech company advisers. It's a time for empathy, but equally important, to make sure the company doesn't come to a standstill -- that employees keep writing code, keep building products and keep selling them.

"You tolerate grief by continuing to move forward," said Jill Smolowe, a grief coach and the author of the memoir "Four Funerals and a Wedding." "Even if it's small steps, you have to keep going forward. The greatest tribute that they can give to Goldberg is to keep moving the company right along."

SurveyMonkey, which makes Web survey technology, is well-positioned to transition into the post-Goldberg era with minimal tumult and uncertainty, according to some experts. Goldberg raised nearly $800 million in debt equity for the company in 2013 and $250 million from investors in 2014, pushing its valuation to $2 billion and delaying an initial public offering. As a private company, it isn't at risk of seeing its stock price drop or public investors flee once a new CEO is named, so it won't have to grapple with financial upheaval as it tries to heal from emotional upheaval.

Dennis Barnhart, the young president of now-defunct Los Gatos company Eagle Computer, died in a car crash in 1983 on the same day the company had scheduled its initial public offering. The company had to rescind the IPO and scramble to launch a new public offering within days, all while trying to grieve Barnhart's death.

Goldberg's family and colleagues will be able to focus on "paying him the respect he deserves without ... these types of serious distractions," said Ron Mickwee, CEO of marketing and consulting firm Mickwee Group, who worked at Eagle Computer in 1983 and was named company president after Barnhart's death.

SurveyMonkey, based in Palo Alto, has not yet named an interim successor. Next in line are Selina Tobaccowala, company president and chief technical officer, and Tim Maly, chief operating officer and chief financial officer. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment from this newspaper. The memorial service for Goldberg was held Tuesday at Stanford Memorial Auditorium.

"When you have cataclysmic events that happen, you have companies in that situation who survive because they have a succession plan in place," said Susan Lucas-Conwell, a longtime tech company adviser.

The death of Steven Appleton, chairman and CEO of Micron Technology who was killed in 2012 when an experimental plane he was piloting crashed, stunned the semiconductor company he had led for nearly two decades. But Micron's ability to get through the trying period was largely because the company named an interim successor on the very day Appleton died, said a Micron spokesman. One day later, the board of directors appointed a permanent leader, who remains the CEO.

The mark a CEO such as Goldberg, a friend and mentor to many, leaves on employees can be a lasting one. Phil Steffora, former vice president of technical operations Relevant Products/Services at Los Altos-based MailBlocks, worked at the Web company when co-founder Phillip Goldman died of heart failure at age 39 in 2003. Steffora still remembers deeply Goldman's friendship, mentorship and leadership.

"He changed many of our lives and we are all richer for knowing him," he said.

And as SurveyMonkey prepares for the road ahead without Goldberg, it can't ignore the varying needs of grieving employees. Some will come to work teary-eyed and seeking condolence, while others may prefer to be alone in their cubicle. Some will want to share stories about Goldberg, and others will want to mourn in silence.

Company executives "can't make assumptions about how people grieve," Lucas-Conwell said. "Let them tell you what they need. No sweeping anything under the table. It's important to get those feeling out in the air and take the temperature. The worst reaction is to say 'OK, now we're in charge, and we'll just send out an email.' "