Google Mentor Dead in Swimming Pool
Rajeev Motwani, a computer science professor who mentored Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford, was found dead in the pool of his Atherton, California home. He was 47.
Friends said he had been planning to learn to swim. Brin posted a blog entry remembering Motwani as an accessible teacher and "good friend:"
When my interest turned to data mining, Rajeev helped to coordinate a regular meeting group on the subject. Even though I was just one of hundreds of graduate students in the department, he always made the time and effort to help. Later, when Larry and I began to work together on the research that would lead to Google, Rajeev was there to support us and guide us through challenges, both technical and organizational.
Motwani one of Silicon Valley's many alumni of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. He was an early investor in a number of startups, including PayPal. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
