Susan Wojcicki, who served as CEO of YouTube for nine years during a period of massive growth for the video platform and was one of Google‘s first hires, died on Friday, Aug. 9. She was 56.
Wojcicki’s death after a two-year fight with cancer was announced by her husband, Dennis Troper, in a public post Friday evening on Facebook. “It is with profound sadness that I share the news of Susan Wojcicki passing. My beloved wife of 26 years and mother to our five children left us today after 2 years of living with non-small cell lung cancer,” Troper wrote in the post. “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. We are heartbroken, but grateful for the time we had with her. Please keep our family in your thoughts as we navigate this difficult time.”
Wojcicki joined Google in 1999 as the 16th employee, becoming the search engine’s first marketing exec and going on to become one of the most prominent women leaders in Silicon Valley. Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin initially ran the company out of her garage in Menlo Park, Calif., which Wojcicki had rented out to the duo before Google secured office space.
In 2005, Wojcicki led the launch of Google Video — and in 2006 she oversaw the internet company’s $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube, a then-fledgling rival video-upload website. Among other accomplishments, she cut the company’s first deals to license search technology and led the initial development of Google’s image search.
In February 2014, Wojcicki was named YouTube’s CEO. Google’s appointment of Wojcicki, one of the company’s most senior execs, reflected how important the video platform had become to its advertising business. She stepped down as CEO of YouTube in February 2023, while remaining an adviser to the company. In a memo to staff at the time, Wojcicki said she was exiting as head of YouTube to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about.”
Wojcicki’s family has deep ties to Silicon Valley and to the Bay Area more broadly. One of her sisters is 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki. Another sister, Janet, is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. Meanwhile, their mother Esther Wojcicki, is a renowned educator who has written extensively on how to raise successful children.
Mrs. Esther Wojcicki was a regular Keynote Speaker at our Startup events, we share this news with profound sadness.
