Yandex CTO and co-founder has died | Hacker News Reader

Yandex CTO and co-founder has died

translate.google.com

236 pointscinskiy71 comments

Truly sad; what a brilliant guy. And a real class act... None of the money-throwing antics[1] of some of his peers. Just a brilliant, modest dude.

Quite fittingly, the Yandex translation is superior to the Google translate version:

http://translate.yandex.net/tr-url/en+ru.en/clubs.ya.ru/comp...

1: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57442907-71/russias-zucker...

I wouldn't be so sure it's superior:

Google: "But he left behind a whole new generation of programmers, an entire school. And it sets the level of ethical standards for all of us." vs Yandex: "But he left behind a whole new generation of programmers, a whole school. And its ethical standards specified the level of all of us."

Google: "Tonight, he was gone." vs Yandex "Tonight he was not."

And RIP Ilya. Many people who knew him said he was a very good person. He didn't spoke in public often, did his work, supported charity and also had an active political stance. What a loss.

With zero knowledge of the source language, those two translations make me think that they were going for "Tonight, he is no more."

UPD: Ilya is in coma with no brain activity, but not dead yet. (http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...)

Ilya was very vocal about his contempt for falsifications in Russian elections. He went to protests and helped develop an app for election observers. This app helped volunteers submit proofs of violations during the elections.

http://webnabludatel.org

He adopted several children and hated the recent law forbidding child adoption by USA citizens.

He will be missed by many.

---

Edit 1: Rephrased the first sentence per suggestion in reply

Edit 2: Added recent info about coma

This sounds defamatory to his colleagues. Most of whom also watched those elections and participate in political activities. It's just that Ilya was the most brightly burning among them all.

Thanks, I didn't mean to imply this. I edited the post.

Very sad news :(

Besides being a great CTO, he kept helping orphaned children [1] and taught juggling (right at Yandex office).

[1] These children: http://mariaschildren.ru/content/view/141/96/

He obviously had a huge heart for these innocents. The average outlook for orphans in Russia who are not adopted is bleak, with many ending up in prison or dead within a few years after being released into society at age 16 or so.

Due to entirely unrelated political forces, the US is banned from adopting them for now, with no change in sight. There are many children throughout the world dreaming of having parents some day.

I suggest to all, when you make your hacker fortune, buy one fewer of your favorite cars and adopt an orphan if you have a heart for children.

Sad news :/ Here is the press release btw (link was broken for me)

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/yandex-announces-death-o...

Sad irony. Today I got an invitation to Yandex.Islands and at once recalled his presentation (video: http://events.yandex.ru/events/yac/m/talks/816/ ). In an hour I read the news...

'May he find peace' seems appropriate considering his profession.

[UPD]: Apparently Ilya is in coma on life support with no brain activity signs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/25/yandex-founder-idU...

The press release on Yandex's website says he's dead.

http://company.yandex.com/press_center/press_releases/2013/2...

Such an incredible person. I've met him a couple of times, and he was always smiling, inquisitive and much nicer than you would ever expect. The good go early.

I misinterpreted the title and thought 2 people died.

me too.

same here

Sorry, fixed the mistake.

How sad to hear.

For those not fammiliar with Yandex check out the interview we did with the other founder, Arkady Voloz, who tells the story of Yandex: http://blip.tv/vincent-everts/ceo-arkady-voloz-tells-the-sto...

Updated: He is in coma. http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=auto&tl=en&...

RIP to a young and brilliant man.

Go out there and live the day, hug your loved ones, enjoy the sun, work hard, don't think about taking over the world and being the next Steve Jobs, stay humble, you're given one life - go out there and make life proud that you are a part of it.

Memento mori

While platitudes generally go over well on hacker news, I'm curious how one can "make life proud that you are a part of it." Should one also try to "make time notice that you exist" or "make gravity work for it?"

I intend to give all these a go by buying a self winding watch and hopping to work everyday and remembering to take a moment to wish everyone I pass a good day and good health.

10:50 status: left home 3 hours ago, almost at the train station to go to work. number of times maced: 1. number of children hurriedly pulled away from me: 7.

There are some conflicting articles suggesting he is in a coma:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/25/yandex-founder-idU...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yandex-co-founder-chief-techno...

Very very sad. A good reminder to do what you love. In the wise words of the modern day poet, Nas: "'cause you never know when ya gonna go"

RIP mate.

Cancer killed another great IT person. Very sad news.

Is there any life story about Ilya? I want to write an article in Chinese about his life and contribution to technology community.

a bit here http://ria.ru/spravka/20130725/951995567.html

more here http://iseg.yandex.ru/

(use google translate or http://translate.yandex.ru/ )

It's not too late because "time of death" was just yesterday after several days coma.

Very sad if someone passes at such a (relativly) young age. Even more so when he made the world a better place for so many people.

Until today, I had never heard of Yandex. I do have to say that their search quality appears to be very high, and I may use them as a Google alternate in the future. Is there any specific reason why they don't have much traction in the US?

Yandex specializes mostly on Russian-speaking countries and neighbours like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan. Recently Turkey. AFAIK, they never tried to market the service in the US.

Yandex was created a bit earlier than Google actually.

Rest In Peace... Really sad to hear this news...

missing the black bar on top

Yandex made its whole logo black.

What's wrong with 2013?

Without death, would we be as motivated to live life?

In a land of immortality, would you willingly give yourself an 80-year death contract in order to motivate yourself to live your life?

Please. Give Einstein, John Von Neumann or Francis Crick another 50 years on this planet and tell me the world would be worse off because of it.

Didn't Crick advocate Eugenics?

...Stalin, Franco, Pinochet?

Maybe none of these guys would have done what they've done.

Maybe they'd never even have been born, their parents being to lazy.

Maybe we'd never have evolved from being pretty comfortable monkeys sitting around - why would we have evolved to breed, to love sex, and to make babies at all? Babies are just competition to an immortal being.

Bottom line is, none of us would be around to mourn the passing of an apparently very nice person. RIP Ilya.

> Maybe we'd never have evolved from being pretty comfortable monkeys sitting around - why would we have evolved to breed, to love sex, and to make babies at all?

But we are here now, and we don't want to die. Death might have been useful in the past, but now it's the high time for it to go away.

You could asses any natural disaster or mass genocide with the same "maybe" logic. I don't know you, but I doubt you applied the same framework to September 11th or the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. These events are objectively tragic, as is the death of Ilya.

Touche.

Would it matter?

Unless you plug into the matrix, you'll end up living your life eventually if you have all the time in the universe to do it.

I think yes, maybe much more. If you could plan for hundred years in the future, not for few decades, if you could realistically hope you have so much amazing things to see and do in front of you... I'd say it's much more motivating than knowing you already lived (for most of us here) 1/3 or 1/2 of your life, and things will soon start to get worse for you.

people might get more serious about current activity with effects far in the future.

Stomach cancer, unexpected exacerbation.

Fuck cancer.

Stomach cancer is extremely deadly. That's one of the worst ones to get... It's quite rare to get it very young, though.

While i don't know about this guy specifically, Russia has high rate of smoking. Coincidentally, several prominent Russian people i've checked out about recently happened to had died from stomach cancer relatively young.

The absurd amount of alcoholic beverages also help

I'm not in any way against the moderate consumption of alcohol but the russians are in another level, really

Just to be clear: I'm not implying this is the case

And Russians also eat a lot of salty food.

Just to be clear: I'm not implying that smoking, drinking, or eating salty food was the cause of his stomach cancer, I'm just generalizing based on stereotypes that I know.

Smoking definitely is one of the causes (around 20% in the UK).

As is (sadly) eating smoked foods.

And of course, you know this because you're one of Ilya's doctors. And also because you have diagnostic skills that the world has never experienced before.

I don't think rorr was implying that smoking was the cause of Ilya's cancer, but rather is the cause of 20% of stomach cancer cases in the UK.

Read my comment and then his. He's implying causation. Not that it even matters to prove this point.

Well, yes, there is a strong correlation between alcohol consumption and cancer rates. I am not sure if it was ever tested on animals to prove that it directly leads to cancer, but in observational studies this is often pointed out as a culprit for high cancer rates.

I believe they did have proof that some Asians don't have the gene which helps break down alcohol, and those that had that gene were at a higher risk of cancer if they drank alcohol. No, I guess it isn't definitive proof though. Still, Russia is on the Asian continent, so this theory holds water.

It's not just for Asians. Alcohol is a known cause of cancer for humans.

From the American Cancer Society (http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/dietandphysicalact...):

"Alcohol is a known cause of cancers of the:

Mouth Throat (pharynx) Voice box (larynx) Esophagus Liver Colon and rectum Breast"

I would take whatever is written by the American Cancer Society with a grain of salt. They have also a political agenda, since they recommend "children and teens" not to consume alcohol at all, even though there is no study or data to support that claim. In most countries around the world, teens and even children drink alcohol early in their lives without notable health effect on the long run as long as their consumption remains reasonable.

Besides, their claim on "There are many ways of reducing heart disease risk, including avoiding smoking, eating a diet low in saturated and trans fats, staying at a healthy weight, staying physically active, and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol." is only partially true and just reflects the current thinking of specialists. The evidence on LDL/HDL levels is not very compelling and there was a post very recently on HN from a surgeon claiming heart disease was rather linked to tissue inflammation than cholesterol.

> there was a post very recently on HN from a surgeon claiming heart disease was rather linked to tissue inflammation than cholesterol

I believe the "surgeon" you referred to is Dwight Lundell. His claim is just that, a claim. Suffice to note that he has his medical license revoked because of "unprofessional conduct":

http://www.casewatch.org/board/med/lundell/order_2008.pdf

> reflects the current thinking of specialists

That means their recommendation reflects the current medical consensus. Of course American Cancer Society is going to make their recommendations based on current medical consensus instead of some wild claim made by someone who has his medical license revoked. To do anything else would be irresponsible.

Ethanol is classified by the WHO and the American Cancer Society (and others) as a carcinogen, in the same group as asbestos, hepatitis and plutonium.

That doesn't mean it's "equally carcinogenic" as those others...just that our knowledge of its carcinogenic properties are similarly confident. It's definitely a carcinogen.

Apparently, Russia is the 4th most smoking country in the world, behind Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece [1].

"According to a survey reported in 2010 by Russia’s Health and Social Development Ministry, 43.9 million adults in Russia are smokers. Among Russians aged 19 to 44 years, 7 in 10 men smoke and 4 in 10 women smoke." [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Russia#Smoking

Considering this Russia, what about polonium poisoning?

Are you suggesting he was assassinated?

It is Russia, can you prove he wasn't?

Is there the slightest evidence he was, other than 'some other guy in Russia was murdered with polonium once'?

You already know that the person who claims an extremely rare event occurred is the person who has to show up with the evidence. Without any evidence, why go around making this sort of inflammatory comment about a very sad event?

Plus, that guy wasn't even in Russia.

Because it is Russia and no getting killed in Russia over politics or business isn't a rare event.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com