Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaks on the World Financial Discussion board annual assembly in Davos, Switzerland, on Could 24, 2022. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP by way of Getty Photos conceal caption
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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Susan Wojcicki, a Silicon Valley visionary who helped form Google and YouTube, died Friday after a two-year battle with non-small cell lung most cancers, in line with her husband. She was 56.
“Susan was not simply my greatest buddy and accomplice in life, however an excellent thoughts, a loving mom, and an expensive buddy to many,” her husband, Dennis Troper, wrote in a Fb submit. “Her affect on our household and the world was immeasurable.”
Wojcicki, born in Santa Clara, Calif., grew up on Stanford College’s campus, the place her father was a physicist. There, she developed a ardour for innovation and making a distinction on the planet. (Her two youthful sisters, Anne and Janet, additionally went on to grow to be powerhouses in their very own respective fields.)
In 1998, Wojcicki rented her storage to Larry Web page and Sergey Brin, a pair of Stanford grad college students on the cusp of constructing the search large Google.
Wojcicki rapidly noticed the corporate’s potential and left her job at Intel to grow to be Google’s first advertising and marketing supervisor. Within the years to comply with, she rapidly moved up the ranks, having a hand at rising the platform’s shopper merchandise and constructing its promoting enterprise.
Later, Wojcicki performed a significant position in Google’s buy of YouTube in 2006 when it was only a small startup. She was appointed YouTube’s CEO in 2014 and led its explosive development over the previous decade. She additionally oversaw the platform because it grappled with hate speech, misinformation and inappropriate content material.
In 2023, Wojcicki introduced she would step down from her position to ” begin a brand new chapter centered on my household, well being, and private tasks.”
“I took on every problem that got here my approach as a result of it had a mission that benefited so many individuals’s lives all over the world: discovering data, telling tales and supporting creators, artists, and small companies. I’m so happy with the whole lot we’ve achieved. It’s been exhilarating, significant, and all-consuming,” she stated in a weblog submit.
Except for rising two tech behemoths, Wojcicki additionally devoted herself to enhancing the office for ladies and fogeys. At Google, she was the primary to take parental depart and continued to advocate for such insurance policies within the workforce.
On Saturday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated Wojcicki can be remembered for the way she “all the time put others first.”
“I’ll always remember her kindness to me as a potential ‘Noogler’ 20 years in the past. Throughout my Google interview she took me out for an ice cream and a stroll round campus. I used to be offered – on Google and Susan,” he stated in a assertion.
Wojcicki was additionally identified for her compelling commencement speech at Johns Hopkins College in 2014. There, she mirrored on her profession and the character of alternatives.
“Not often are alternatives introduced to you within the excellent approach, in a pleasant little field with a yellow bow on high,” she stated. “Alternatives, the great ones, they’re messy and complicated and arduous to acknowledge. They’re dangerous. They problem you.”
Silicon Valley neighborhood and YouTube creators mourn a tech pioneer
On Saturday, the pinnacle of YouTube, Neal Mohan, who assumed the position after Wojcicki, wrote on X that YouTube misplaced “a teammate, mentor, and buddy. … I’m eternally grateful for her friendship and steerage. I’ll miss her tremendously. My coronary heart goes out to her household and family members.”
Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner additionally mourned Wojcicki’s passing. “She was one in every of Silicon Valley’s visionaries and she or he can be missed by so many. Could she relaxation in peace,” he wrote on X.
Marc Benioff, CEO and co-founder of Salesforce, described Wojcicki — who was on Salesforce’s board — as a trailblazer and an instance of nice management. “She had a outstanding potential to steer with grace and imaginative and prescient, lighting up each interplay along with her knowledge and heat. Her form coronary heart, smart counsel, and philanthropic spirit touched numerous lives,” he stated on X.
Outdoors of Silicon Valley, John and Hank Inexperienced — each authors and well-liked YouTubers — shared their condolences.
“Folks really feel just like the construction of the world is inevitable, however it’s constructed by individuals and what yall constructed beneath Susan’s quiet management in a ridiculously advanced setting is extraordinarily particular and head and shoulders above what others created. I’m so unhappy to have misplaced her,” Hank Inexperienced wrote on X.
John Inexperienced stated, “She was (very quietly) the only greatest donor to our challenge supporting maternal well being in Sierra Leone. She by no means as soon as requested for credit score or consideration for her gifts–just privately supported our challenge and lots of others. An distinctive chief and particular person.”
