A week ago I saw a Twitter account that changed its name to “Slava Ukraini”. I assumed this was some support for the Ukrainian people but wanted to know the translation. It means “Glory to Ukraine”. We have a team chat and I had to share this little bit of trivia. Got the smiley from Slava, because he and I have always had a great relationship, joking about Russian/US cultural stuff. A long time ago I told him about my heritage and while he laughed it off (because it doesn’t change anything about me) it was nice to share the bond.

At about 10pm last night I wrote a peer review of Slava for evaluation season coming up over the next few weeks. Last. Night. We got word that he passed away early this morning.

I met Slava about 10 years ago. We interviewed him for an analyst position. I liked him right away and told DW that we needed to hire him. At the time I was architecting this profitability project “AM” and Slava was going to help me out. He was a natural and took to it. When I left the team, Slava took over the program and some enhancements dubbed “AM2.0”. I was invited to the rollout party a few months later. I admit, there was a little jealousy at the credit he got. But I was happy and proud that we made it work successfully.

Slava was this super proud Russian. He loved the idea of restoring the national pride that was Soviet. We had many positive conversations about Russian life, what college/school was like, family, etc. It was fun and enlightening to hear his take on life in Russia and share stories from my youth. He was younger than me, but wise beyond his years. I have made some bad hiring calls over the years. Not Slava.

When I heard he was coming back to the team, I was confused. Slava had joined another part of the firm, and his career was moving strong. Customer facing stuff. I came back during Covid and he joined shortly after. Because of Covid we were all Zoom. Slava didn’t turn on his camera. I had heard that he was sick and while we all work crazy hours at this level, our team was more flexible, so it was a good fit for him to come back. We had a 1:1 about a year and half ago and he finally turned on his camera. We talked about the cancer, his diagnosis, the treatment, family. I’m glad that he opened up to me. He then stepped into a peer squad lead role doing AI/ML. He was excited about this stuff and part of the reason he came back. We shared a lot of interactions with certain people and it was fun to have side conversations about them. Slava was such a fun guy to talk to.

Up until the teams chat last week, we knew Slava had been out a lot. A few months ago he had a big surgery in NY and he was taking calls from the hospital because he was “bored out of my mind.” Nothing says Russian fortitude like that. I didn’t realize things had turned. Selfishly, I wish I had the chance to say goodbye, but I’m glad he ignored work and hopefully spent more time with friends, family, his wife and kids.

Dosvidaniya my good friend.