Rajeev Motwani expires

Professor Rajeev Motwani, the computer scientist who has died aged 47, advised the founders of Google, the world's biggest search engine, and became one of their earliest backers. Motwani was best known for mentoring Sergey Brin and Larry Page in their student days at Stanford University in California, where he was professor of computer science. As their search engine took shape, Motwani became their technical adviser and guided several other computer-based companies including PayPal, in which he was an early investor. A shrewd businessman as well as an acclaimed computer scientist, he also owned an undisclosed amount of stock in Google.