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It ’s every parent ’s bad incubus .

in the beginning this week , the 19 - twelvemonth - old son of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki , was found dead at UC Berkeley of an seeming drug overdose , according to his grandmother , Esther Wojcicki . The   news broke wide yesterday , though Wojcicki brand the news to Facebook several day ago , writing : “ Tragedy hit my family yesterday . My beloved grandson Marco Troper , age 19 egest forth yesterday . Our family is devastated beyond inclusion . Marco was the most genial , loving , smart , merriment and beautiful human being . He was just getting started on his 2d semester of his newcomer year at UC Berkeley majoring in math and was genuinely do it it . He had a strong community of friends from his dorm at Stern Hall and his fraternity Zeta Psi and was thriving academically . At home , he would tell us eternal story of his life story and friends at Berkeley . ”

UC Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore has said there were no signs of loathsome child’s play and that an investigation into the last is afoot .

Esther Wojcicki told the Palo Alto Daily of her grandson ’s passing , “ Kids in college , especially freshmen and sophomores , experiment with everything . I think this was an experimentation that went amiss . ” She severally told the San Francisco Chronicle : “ He have a drug , and we do n’t know what was in it . One affair we do get laid , it was a drug . ”

Susan Wojcicki stepped down as CEO of the Alphabet - possess subsidiary one year ago , publish in a blog Emily Post that after nine years in the function , she ’d “ decided to start out a new chapter focalise on my family , health and personal labor I ’m passionate about . ”

Neal Mohan , then YouTube ’s chief product officer , has start the organisation since .

I did n’t have the opportunity to interview Wojcicki while she held one of the most esteemed CEO posts in the humanity . I do remember being captivated by her appearance at a Fortune effect in Aspen back in 2015 as sheanswered questionsthat she was require routinely , concentrate on on how she juggled an all - encompassing Book of Job with also being a female parent to five children . Her interviewer , veteran reporter Adam Lashinsky , was teased in an interview later that same day with brothers Ari and Rahm Emanuel , who observe that Lashinsky did n’t require them at all about their children . But truthfully ,   as a figure out female parent of two baby and a substantially less - need job at the metre , I was also rum how Wojcicki — who gave nascency to her youngest fry just forwards of the event — handled it all .

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Notably , she did not push back on the interrogative sentence . or else , she talked about consort her different children with different stage of Google ’s ontogenesis , after first answer , “ ‘ You ’re moderately officious ’ is maybe the short result . I sleep together youngster , I love workplace and I think at some level I just roll in the hay create thing and building . And like kids are very rewarding project . build ship’s company is rewarding too and I enjoy doing both . ”

My heart now part for Wojcicki and her family , which is know far beyond their household in Silicon Valley and let in 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki ; Susan and Anne ’s baby Janet , a professor of pediatrics at the University of California , San Francisco ; and their female parent Esther Wojcicki , herself a renowned educator who has write extensively on how to raise successful kid .

Perhaps unsurprisingly , Esther Wojcicki severalize the SF Chronicle that the family is speaking with the press in part to “ prevent this from happen to any other category . ”

“ Tragedy is very hard to prolong , ” she told the Chronicle . “ It makes you desire to blot out in a loo and never occur out . But I think the main matter is that we call for to agitate forward to see what we can do to help other the great unwashed so there wo n’t be any other nipper who end up like Marco . ”

presumptively , his death is already spark widespread conversations . After hear of it late yesterday , I reminded my own child of the danger of today ’s drug , how distressingly cute life is , and that no one is immune to calamity .