Susan Wojcicki, a tech pioneer and former head of YouTube who helped Google grow, passed away on Friday at the age of 56 following a fight with lung cancer, her husband said.
One of the most well-known women in Silicon Valley, Wojcicki spent almost twenty years contributing to the development of Google from a garage-based search engine company to a multinational technology giant.
Before leaving the company last year to concentrate on her own endeavors, family, and health, Wojcicki oversaw operations at YouTube, which Google purchased in 2006. She had held the position for almost ten years.
Dennis Troper, her spouse, disclosed on Facebook that she has been coping with lung cancer for the past 24 months.
“My beloved wife of 26 years and mother to our five children left us today,” he wrote.
“Susan was not just my best friend and partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to many. Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable.”
When her pals Sergey Brin and Larry Page opened up shop in the garage of Wojcicki’s Menlo Park, California home in 1998, she was employed at Intel. She became the company’s 16th employee and first marketing manager a year later.
She contributed to the development of image search at Google and worked on the company’s acquisitions of DoubleClick and YouTube.
“She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it’s hard to imagine the world without her,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, wrote on social media platform X.
“She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and I’m one of countless Googlers who is better for knowing her. We will miss her dearly.”
In 2014, Wojcicki was appointed CEO of YouTube. As more people flocked to the internet for movies and television series, she helped direct the industry’s expansion by introducing new types of advertisements and introducing a streaming television service.
In addition, she managed the organization through issues including hate speech, kid privacy, and the dissemination of false information, particularly during the Covid-19 outbreak.
In a 2014 opinion piece, Wojcicki—who was four months pregnant at the time of her Google interview—argued forcefully in favor of paid parental leave, saying that companies should support such generous programs.
Troper has five children with her.
