Google professor/investor dies


Rajeev Motwani, who died this week at 47, was one of the most versatile tech veterans in Silicon Valley. From New Delhi, he came to this country in the 1980s and certainly realized the American dream.

Motwani earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley, and from there he went over to Stanford. Interestingly enough, he taught Larry Page and Sergey Brin -- the co-founders of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). In fact, they wrote a key paper that was the harbinger of PageRank.

Motwani went beyond academia as he invested his own money into a variety of start-ups, including PayPal and Google. Yes, he was one of the top angel investors in the Valley and was even an adviser to Sequoia Capital.

Despite these activities, Motwani remained an active professor at Stanford and continued his research. For example, he wrote several path-breaking books, such as Randomized Algorithms. He also won the Godel Prize.

No doubt, Motwani will be a big loss for the tech community.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and the founder of BizEquity, a free online business valuation tool for small businesses. You can reach him at his personal blog.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-117.8812,772.58
NASDAQ-19.942,907.29
S&P 500-10.601,341.35

Last updated: February 10, 2012: 12:44 PM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.85-0.28(-1.46)

Alcoa

10.335-0.305(-2.87)

Apple Inc

496.23+3.06(+0.62)

Google Inc 'A'

607.54-3.92(-0.64)

Bank of America

8.09-0.09(-1.10)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.45-0.51(-0.82)

Exxon Mobil Corp

83.60-1.28(-1.51)

Ford

12.46-0.23(-1.81)

Citigroup

32.95-0.71(-2.11)

IBM

191.80-1.33(-0.69)

Yahoo

16.245+0.245(+1.53)

Starbucks

48.81-0.39(-0.79)

Microsoft

30.605-0.165(-0.54)

Home Depot

45.18-0.09(-0.20)

DailyFinance Headlines

Benzinga Headlines

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

BioHealth Investor Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

DailyFinance BlackBerry App

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Page Loaded in 1328895878580 ms.