Luiz André Barroso has died | Hacker News Reader

Luiz André Barroso has died

spectrum.ieee.org

282 pointsmartyvis40 comments

I loved Luiz, I worked for him in platforms (his datacenter development department). He was truly one of the kindest people I have ever met. I deeply miss our banter around the coffee machine and am saddened the last time is past.

We've lost another great pioneer and human in our tribe. Pour out a beautiful coffee for Luiz

Let there be more Kindness... May one ask for an example of his kindness, if you would share?

+10000. Genuinely one of the best humans i've met.

The book he wrote about datacenters is something people interested in the subject should read: https://www.amazon.com/dp/303100633X/

He was the only senior manager I ever had who would walk the halls and talk to engineers he bumped into. He would be genuinely curious about what we were doing.

Once we were admiring a bird perched in a tree outside the window, and he came over to tell us all about it, we all felt his genuine enthusiasm.

He was a lovely person and, even though I didn't work directly for him, I am sad that he is gone.

He had some crazy good bird photographs with really expensive camera equipment. Dude was definitely enthusiastic about wildlife photography

He was into rainforest conservation and stuff, and was from Brazil.

Yes. He was a finalist for various serious photography contests - we got to talking about it because my friend won one with a famous picture that ended up on the cover of national geographic (polar bear and cub on ice in the middle of nowhere).

His other passion was guitar.

and brazillian soccer.

He had rigged up a whole bunch of night cameras at his house and shared absolutely amazing pictures of wild cats. https://www.facebook.com/LosAltosTownCrier/posts/10156330289... and lots more: https://www.barroso.org/wildlife.html

absolutely one of my favorite people to hang out with when I worked at Google. He was also the promoter of 'roofshots' which was about the nicest way I've seen somebody criticize Larry Page's unrealistic "moonshots":

"""Don’t get me wrong. I want flying drones that can bring me fresh produce. I’m excited about contact lenses that measure blood sugar. And I look forward to the day that self-driving cars are on the road everywhere. These initiatives are examples of some visionary programs being pursued by Google and Alphabet teams, collectively referred to as moonshots — disruptive, 10X leaps in technology. But there has been a growing perception that moonshots are the primary model for radical innovation at Google, and chiefly responsible for our greatest product and technical achievements. What I have seen during my 15 years at Google does not match that perception. I contend that the bulk of our successes have been the result of the methodical, relentless, and persistent pursuit of 1.3-2X opportunities — what I have come to call “roofshots”.""" Luis André Barroso — Google fellow and VP of engineering

The roofshot manifesto was great, I wish they would publish it

it used to be on Google's site but the URL redirects now :(

Anyway, https://web.archive.org/web/20230922060904/https://rework.wi...

Discussed a couple of months ago, when it happened:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37606775

It's strange for an obituary to be two months late...

it says in the september article from wired establishing the cause of death may take weeks, is it mentioned somewhere now?

In the article:

> He died unexpectedly of natural causes

Does it have anything to do with recent pandemic events?

yes, the ones that will take weeks to establish. are the results mentioned somewhere now?

This isn’t one obituary. It’s a list of members who died, with his name being the first listed.

The article tags say it's one, though...

Outside of major public figures it's not that unusual. Writing an obit. takes time, especially for lesser known figures where you may need to contact friends and family (who may be grieving) for information about the person's life.

ieee writing an obituary is really a different context than the Daily Beagle running obituary.

Unless they publish infrequently.

His book "The Datacenter as a Computer: An Introduction to the Design of Warehouse-Scale Machines" was immensely valuable to me as I moved into datacenter management as a new-grad. RIP.

https://research.google/pubs/pub41606/

I came to know when Jeff Dean tweeted about it in September [1]. Truly a great loss.

[1]. https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1705042899677884630

He is from the same university where Lua was invented and still maintained nowadays. This Brazilian university has quite a history of awesome achievements specially in graphics computing...

This already happened in circ Sept 2023. Great Googler. He kept the culture alive. May he rest in peace.

It would be interesting if you could talk about the ways he "kept the culture alive"; I think a lot of people would be interested in reading about that.

Seems too young, may he rest in peace

FYI old news. But he was so humble and had gratitude, this was exemplified in how he still kept the Google culture alive by being transparent in TGIFs.

May his soul rest in peace.

The heroes we don't usually hear about. RIP.

Do we know what happened? 59 is a young age.

Typo in the article title

>Pioneer of Google’s Data Centers Dies at 58

He died at 59

TFA contains both ages!

"Senior member, 59; died 16 September"

Looks like he was really loved. A few months ago when it happened there were many posts talking about him (which regretfully as a Brazilian I didn't know). I wish he had got this much attention when he was still alive.

He was definitely loved. He wouldn't have wanted the attention. He just enjoyed living his life as him. In that sense, the attention is more for the rest of us than him.

As a Brazilian who migrated to another country, I mostly try to hide my background. It is great to see that some of our values, like compassion, are appreciated in other countries, and folks like Luiz André could show a bit of it

Gone too young. Seemed a nice person.

I wonder if the fox will return this night. Maybe I should put some corks outside.

... died 16 September.

Should the title be updated?

Rest in peace.

R.I.P.

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