Rajeev Motwani, Google founders' professor and early investor, dies

This is insane. I took his class on Automata and Complexity Theory (cs154.stanford.edu) two years ago, and I have friends who came out of the final exam for the class only a few hours ago.

I remember really enjoying this class, despite not having much of a knack for deeply theoretical CS. I was introduced to the concepts behind automata, turing machines, deterministic and nondeterministic computing, decidability theory, NP-completeness, and so on. I enjoyed this class entirely because of the way he taught it -- he took great care in the precision, concision, and clarity of his lectures.

What a deeply talented, smart, and clearly influential individual. My condolences go out to his family and friends.

I'm on a plane that's about to close its doors so can't write more, but what a great guy. In school, I used his Randomized Algorithms books which was great.

I met him randomly, but he helped us meet the ultimate acquirers of our startup and gave us a bunch of great ideas about algorithms, software, and who to meet. Invaluable for two kids who had just moved to the valley.

Wish I could have worked with him more--was actually hoping to on the next startup.

Death awaits us at every corner of life.

Tomorrow is Saturday. So, go out, hug a friend, enjoy a good meal, dance with a partner, love someone you love because you never know when death lurks in the shadows.

A cousin of mine met him just by chance while visiting Stanford to check out the grad school last year. Prof. Motwani was more than happy to sit down with him for almost an hour and give him career advice. Being so open and helpful to strangers while being so successful is a rare trait and a sure indicator of greatness.

May his family find the strength to get through this tragedy.

Randomized Algorithms is one of those books that frustrated, challenged, and ultimately enlightened me. I have at least one friend who I know worked closely with him and always had kind words to say. A sad loss.

how old was he? How come you don't see the guy's age listed in any of the stories covering this?

I am humbled by his achievements and academic work. Sad to see such an influential figure leave us. A tragic loss for us all.

Rest in peace.

Sergey Brin's tributes: http://too.blogspot.com/2009/06/remembering-rajeev.html

That's really sad. R.I.P.

Very sad news. What exactly happened? I read that it was a "swimming pool accident" on Wikipedia, but none of the sources verified this.