(ReliableNews.org) – Susan Wojcicki is a giant in the tech world. She helped the founders of Google in 1998 by renting her garage as an office space to them when they were getting started. She went on to work for the tech company and then served as YouTube’s CEO for nine years, before leaving in 2023. Sadly, Wojcicki has just suffered a heartbreaking personal loss.
On February 13, Wojcicki’s son, 19-year-old Marco Troper, was found dead on the UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus. The school’s spokesperson, Janet Gilmore, emailed a statement to SFGate, stating the college freshman was found unresponsive in his dorm room at 4:23 p.m. local time. The Berkeley Fire Department performed “life-saving measures,” but the teenager was eventually declared dead.
Esther Wojcicki, the teen’s grandmother, posted a tribute to her grandson on social media. She described him as a “kind, loving, smart, fun, and beautiful human being.” She said he was just starting his second semester of college, where he was “majoring in math and was truly loving it.” According to his grandma, he told his family “endless stories of his life and friends” at the university. Wojcicki went on to say Troper’s “life was cut too short,” and his family is “all devastated.”
Law enforcement didn’t find any evidence of foul play at the scene. Esther Wojcicki told the newspaper that the family believes Troper died of a drug overdose. She said he ingested narcotics of some sort but that they weren’t sure what it was. “One thing we do know, it was a drug,” she explained. The grieving grandmother also said they wanted to prevent a similar tragedy from happening to other families.
The medical examiner has performed an autopsy on the teen, including a toxicology screening. The results could take weeks.
Troper is survived by his mother, grandmother, father, Dennis Troper, and four siblings. His survivors also include his maternal aunt, Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and CEO of the genetic testing company 23andMe.
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