Yandex CTO and co-founder has died

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...

xenator• 13 years ago

Cancer killed another great IT person. Very sad news.

f902370• 13 years ago

What's wrong with 2013?

jschuur• 13 years ago

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

brilee• 13 years ago

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

microb2• 13 years ago

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.

appplemac• 13 years ago

Touche.

unimpressive• 13 years ago

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.

TeMPOraL2• 13 years ago

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.

forlorn• 13 years ago

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...

numair• 13 years ago

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...

kombine• 13 years ago

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.

Zikes• 13 years ago

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

rorrr22• 13 years ago

Stomach cancer, unexpected exacerbation.

Fuck cancer.

ekianjo4• 13 years ago

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

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

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.

xradionut• 13 years ago

Considering this Russia, what about polonium poisoning?

nine_k• 13 years ago

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/

OldSchool• 13 years ago

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.

meadhikari• 13 years ago

missing the black bar on top

cinskiy3• 13 years ago

Yandex made its whole logo black.

dakrisht• 13 years ago

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

mjolk5• 13 years ago

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?"

jentulman• 13 years ago

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.

kayoone• 13 years ago

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.

pmoehring• 13 years ago

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.

girvo• 13 years ago

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.

danabramov2• 13 years ago

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

guard-of-terra2• 13 years ago

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.

danabramov2• 13 years ago

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

josephpmay• 13 years ago

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?

omgtehlion• 13 years ago

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.

elementai• 13 years ago

Yandex was created a bit earlier than Google actually.

photorized• 13 years ago

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...

cinskiy3• 13 years ago

[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...

CanSpice• 13 years ago

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

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