Rajeev Motwani - In Memoriam

It's not an overstatement to say that I get most of my news from Twitter these days! Admittedly some of those "scoops" turn out to be rumors, and not to be taken seriously. That is how I initially reacted to the update that spread like wildfire on June 5th that Stanford Professor and well known Valley investor and advisor Rajeev Motwani passed away quite suddenly - especially since just 3 days back, he had (like numerous times before) introduced me to someone who he believed I should meet.

It has been days since the incident happened, but still feels like a shock. A lot has been said about Rajeev's razor-sharp intellect, his ability to pick winners and back them (like Google, Jareva, Flarion, Kaboodle, Green Border and many others). As Sergey Brin appropriately put it:

Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it.

During the early days of starting Aeroprise, Rajeev was one of the first people I was introduced to (when folks heard that we were a bunch of students with a technology background thinking of starting a company). We were then still in stealth mode, and did not want the name to give away too much regarding what we were upto! Rajeev got the significance of lying low, and focusing on having a product before trying to build a business around it. The numerous brainstorms at University Coffee Cafe are still fresh in my mind, where he would put his finger on the most critical issues within 30 seconds, and yet have the patience and grace to let you describe your entire problem before flashing his smile. Of course, you knew at that point that something was wrong... but Rajeev was too nice to laugh at any entrepreneur's dreams, especially those of his students!

During one of these conversations, we brought up our name (then called Kwaish an Urdu word for Dream) and mentioned to Rajeev that several people thought we should change it. We asked if that should be a priority for us at all. Rajeev replied - "Just focus on succeeding. When you go public, people will learn how to say Kwaish!"

Rajeev leaves behind a generation of aspiring entrepreneurs he inspired, who will I am sure carry forward his generosity with his time and resources and his support for entrepreneurship! Silicon Valley will miss his dignity, intellect and grace, and University Coffee Cafe will never be the same again.