Who was Susan Wojcicki? All you need to know about former YouTube CEO as she passes away at 56 after battle with cancer
Following a two-year struggle with cancer, Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube and an early backer of Google, passed away at the age of 56.
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TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains references to an individual's death.
Susan Wojcicki, a prominent figurehead in the technology sector, has passed away at the age of 56. She leaves behind an incredible legacy that extended from her early support of Google to her revolutionary leadership at YouTube.
According to social media posts from Wojcicki's husband Dennis Troper and Sundar Pichai, CEO of YouTube parent company Alphabet Inc., Wojcicki passed away following a two-year fight with cancer.
She declared in February 2023 that she would be leaving YouTube to give more time to her personal projects, family, and health. The company did not provide any details about her condition at that time.
On July 5, 1968, Susan Diane Wojcicki was born in Santa Clara, California. Her mother, Esther Wojcicki, was a journalist, and her father, Stanley Wojcicki, taught physics at Stanford University. She contributed to the school newspaper when a student at Palo Alto, California's Gunn High School.
She attended Harvard University to study literature and history, and in 1990 she received an honors degree. She also graduated with an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1998 after earning her MS in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1993.
Wojcicki worked in marketing at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, California, and as a management consultant at Bain & Company and R.B. Webber & Company prior to joining Google as its first marketing manager in 1999.
Wojcicki was one of the most popular female executives in Silicon Valley and one of Google's longest-serving workers. In the age of social media, very few people possessed more influence over the economy of the internet.
She served as CEO of YouTube from 2014 until 2023, solidifying the platform's position as a daily destination for billions of people and a platform for countless performers to begin their careers. Prior to that, Wojcicki spent years of management experience to technologies that enabled almost any digital publisher to benefit from adverts, putting Google at the forefront of the lucrative business.
During her leadership, YouTube also saw a number of scandals involving violent ideologies, conspiracy theories, and propaganda that turned the platform into a battlefield for free speech, the truth, and internet regulation.
As a result, she implemented numerous measures to allay worries expressed by sponsors, creators, and authorities. In 1998, Wojcicki married Dennis Troper. He was a seasoned manager at Google. Together they share five kids.
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