Who is Marco Trooper Berkeley? Susan Wojcicki Son Dead

Marco Trooper Berkeley is the son of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki who has been found dead on the campus of UC Berkeley.

Marco Trooper, a college freshman at UC Berkeley, died in his dormitory on February 13th of a suspected drug overdose.

His grandmother, Esther Wojcicki, revealed the sad death of the Berkeley student to SF Gate.

She said he had been found unresponsive in his dormitory and she believes he died of an overdose.

“He was everything you could have wished for in a son and a grandson. He was destined to make a difference. It’s heartbreaking,” she said.

So who was Marco Trooper Berkeley? Who was his mother, former Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki?

Who are other members of this famous family and what happened to Marco Trooper? We go on a journey of discovery below.

Let’s dive right in!

Who was Marco Trooper Berkeley?

Marco Trooper was the 19-year-old son of Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube.

He was a freshman majoring in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, described by his grandmother, Esther Wojcicki, as a “loving” and a “math genius”.

He had a strong community of friends from his dorm at Stern Hall and his fraternity Zeta Psi.

Trooper was passionate about his studies and his life at Berkeley.

Sadly, Marco Trooper was found dead on Feb. 13, 2024, in his dormitory at Clark Kerr Campus in UC Berkeley, a spokesperson for the school confirmed.

He was found unresponsive by the Berkeley Fire Department, who attempted life-saving measures but pronounced him dead shortly after.

The cause of death is not currently known, but there were no signs of foul play, according to campus police.

His grandmother, Esther Wojcicki, believes that he may have died from a drug overdose, possibly involving fentanyl.

She said, “He ingested a drug, and we don’t know what was in it. … One thing we do know, it was a drug.”

The family is waiting for a toxicology report that could confirm the cause of death, but it could take up to 30 days.

She added: “He was everything you could have wished for in a son and a grandson. He was destined to make a difference. It’s heartbreaking.”

His family expressed their devastation and grief in a Facebook post, saying,

“Marco was the most kind, loving, smart, fun, and beautiful human being. He was just getting started on his second semester of his freshman year at UC Berkeley majoring in math and was truly loving it. …

“Marco’s life was cut too short. And we are all devastated, thinking about all the opportunities and life experiences that he will miss and we will miss together. Marco, we all love you and miss you more than you will ever know.”

The UC Berkeley community also mourned his loss and offered support and resources to the students and staff affected by his death.

The chancellor of the university, Carol Christ, sent a message to the campus, saying, “We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss of one of our own. Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and all who knew him. This is a difficult time for our entire community and we all need to care for each other.”

Esther Wojcicki later told SF GATE about Grandson Marco Trooper’s death.

“Tragedy is very hard to sustain,” she told the outlet.

“It makes you want to hide in a closet and never come out, but I think the main thing is that we need to push forward to see what we can do to help other people so there won’t be any other kids who end up like Marco.”

Marco Trooper was the son of former Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki

Susan Wojcicki is an American business executive who was the chief executive officer (CEO) of YouTube from 2014 to 2023.

She now serves in an advisory role to Google and Google-parent Alphabet. She has worked in the technology industry for over 20 years.

Susan Wojcicki had a son, Marco Trooper, who tragically died during his college freshman year at UC Berkeley.

Wojcicki as involved in the creation of Google in 1998 when she rented out her garage as an office to the company’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

She worked as Google’s first marketing manager in 1999, and later led the company’s online advertising business and original video service.

After observing the success of YouTube, she suggested that Google should buy it; the deal was approved for $1.65 billion in 2006. She was appointed CEO of YouTube in 2014, serving until resigning in February 2023.

Susan Wojcicki is considered one of the most influential and powerful women in the world, and has been ranked among the top 50 on Forbes’ list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

She has also received numerous awards and honors for her leadership and innovation in the tech industry.

She is married to Dennis Troper, a product director at Google, and has five children including the late Marco Trooper Berkeley.

Other famous members of the Wojcicki family include…

Her parents, Stanley Wojcicki and Esther Wojcicki. Stanley is a Polish physics professor at Stanford University, and Esther is an American journalist and educator.

Her sisters, Janet Wojcicki and Anne Wojcicki. Janet is a professor of anthropology and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and Anne is the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe, a personal genomics and biotechnology company.

Her grandparents, Franciszek Wójcicki and Janina Wójcicka Hoskins. Franciszek was a Polish politician who served as a member of parliament after World War II, and Janina was a Polish-American librarian who built the largest collection of Polish material in the U.S.

Marco Trooper’s mother Susan Wojcicki is on LinkedIn @susan-wojcicki

Fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S.

Fentanyl, which Marco Trooper Berkeley is suspected to have died from, has become a massive problem drug in the United States.

Fentanyl is an extremely potent synthetic opioid similar to morphine, but more powerful.

It is a prescription drug but is also manufactured illegally and is sometimes mixed with other illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine, often without the user’s knowledge.

The potency of fentanyl makes it very addictive and puts users at a high risk for overdose.

Illegally manufactured fentanyl has become more prevalent in the U.S. in recent years, leading to a huge increase in drug overdose deaths.

According to the CDC, more than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, and fentanyl was the most frequently implicated substance.

The number of overdose deaths involving fentanyl rose from 6 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 22 per 100,000 in 2021, an increase of 279%.

Fentanyl overdoses are now the driving force behind the opioid epidemic, accounting for the majority of overdose deaths in the U.S.

The rate of overdose deaths involving fentanyl varies by age, gender, race, and ethnicity.

The rate is highest among young adults ages 25 to 44, with men more affected than women.

All races and ethnicities are involved, but Black Americans and Native Americans have the highest rates, followed by non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics. The rate is lowest among non-Hispanic Asians.

The CDC recommends several strategies to prevent and reduce fentanyl overdose deaths, such as expanding access to naloxone, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses; increasing availability of medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder; enhancing surveillance and testing of illicit drugs for fentanyl; improving public health and law enforcement collaboration; and raising awareness and education among health care providers, drug users, and the public about the risks and harms of fentanyl.

UC Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California.

It was established in 1868 and is the state’s first land-grant university.

It is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and is the founding campus of the University of California system. Berkeley has the most top-ranked departments nationally and is one of the highest-ranked universities worldwide.

It produces many entrepreneurs and attracts funding for startup companies with more having been founded than any other university.

Berkeley hosts multiple research institutes and played a role in the Manhattan Project and the discovery of sixteen chemical elements.

It also has three national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory).

Berkeley’s athletic teams, which compete as the California Golden Bears in the Pac-12 Conference, have won 107 national championships. Berkeley has a strict academic standard for athlete admission and alumni have won 223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold medals).

Berkeley is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity”.

Among Berkeley’s alumni, faculty, and researchers are 190 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, 107 Nobel laureates, 68 recipients of the National Medal of Science, 34 Pulitzer Prize winners, 30 Wolf Prize winners, 25 Turing Award winners, 22 cabinet members, 19 Academy Award winners, 14 Fields Medalists, and 10 state governors.

Alumni also include seven heads of state or government, six chief justices, and twenty-five billionaires.

It is a leading producer of Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall and Gates Cambridge Scholars.

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