Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki dies at 56 after battle with lung cancer : NPR

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 keeping with her husband. She was 56.

“Susan was not simply my greatest buddy and companion in life, however an excellent thoughts, a loving mom, and an expensive buddy to many,” her husband, Dennis Troper, wrote in a Fb put up. “Her influence 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 this 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 big Google.

Wojcicki shortly 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 shortly moved up the ranks, having a hand at rising the platform’s shopper 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 progress 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 targeted on my household, well being, and private initiatives.”

“I took on every problem that got here my method as a result of it had a mission that benefited so many individuals’s lives around the globe: 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 put up.

Other than rising two tech behemoths, Wojcicki additionally devoted herself to bettering 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 might be remembered for the 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 stated in an announcement.

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.

“Not often are alternatives introduced to you within the good method, 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 group and YouTube creators mourn a tech pioneer

On Saturday, the top 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 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 might 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 type coronary heart, clever counsel, and philanthropic spirit touched numerous lives,” he stated on X.

Outdoors of Silicon Valley, John and Hank Inexperienced — each authors and in style YouTubers — shared their condolences.

“Individuals really feel just like the construction of the world is inevitable, however it’s constructed by folks and what yall constructed below 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 said, “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 individual.”