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
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