Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaks on the World Financial Discussion board annual assembly in Davos, Switzerland, on Might 24, 2022.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Photographs
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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Photographs
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 accordance with her husband. She was 56.
“Susan was not simply my finest pal and accomplice in life, however a superb thoughts, a loving mom, and an expensive pal to many,” her husband, Dennis Troper, wrote in a Fb put up. “Her impression 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 shortly noticed the corporate’s potential and left her job at Intel to grow to be Google’s first advertising supervisor. Within the years to observe, she shortly moved up the ranks, having a hand at rising the platform’s client merchandise and constructing its promoting enterprise.
Later, Wojcicki performed a serious 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 means 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 every thing we’ve achieved. It’s been exhilarating, significant, and all-consuming,” she mentioned in a weblog put up.
Except for rising two tech behemoths, Wojcicki additionally devoted herself to enhancing the office for girls and oldsters. At Google, she was the primary to take parental go away and continued to advocate for such insurance policies within the workforce.
On Saturday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned Wojcicki shall be remembered for a way she “at all times 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 mentioned in a assertion.
Wojcicki was additionally identified for her compelling commencement speech at John Hopkins College in 2014. There, she mirrored on her profession and the character of alternatives.
“Hardly ever are alternatives introduced to you within the excellent means, in a pleasant little field with a yellow bow on high,” she mentioned. “Alternatives, the great ones, they’re messy and complicated and exhausting to acknowledge. They’re dangerous. They problem you.”
Silicon Valley group 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 pal. … I’m ceaselessly grateful for her friendship and steering. I’ll miss her tremendously. My coronary heart goes out to her household and family members.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner additionally mourned Wojcicki’s passing. “She was one in every of Silicon Valley’s visionaries and she or he shall be missed by so many. Might 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 means to guide with grace and imaginative and prescient, lighting up each interplay together with her knowledge and heat. Her type coronary heart, clever counsel, and philanthropic spirit touched numerous lives,” he mentioned on X.
Exterior of Silicon Valley, John and Hank Inexperienced — each authors and in style 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 surroundings 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 mentioned, “She was (very quietly) the one greatest donor to our undertaking 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 undertaking and plenty of others. An distinctive chief and particular person.”