Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube and one of Google’s earliest employees, has died at the age of 56.
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai shared the news of her passing, revealing that Wojcicki had been battling lung cancer for two years.
In a heartfelt message on X/Twitter, Pichai expressed that he was “unbelievably saddened” and emphasized that Wojcicki was “as core to the history of Google as anyone.”
Often described as the “most important Googler you’ve never heard of,” Wojcicki played a pivotal role in Google’s early days.
In 1998, she rented out her Menlo Park garage to the company’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, marking her involvement with the tech giant from the start.
She later left her job at Intel to join Google as its 16th employee.
Wojcicki would eventually lead YouTube, steering the platform for nine years until she stepped down in 2023 to focus on “family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about.”
As one of the few women in senior leadership within the tech industry, Wojcicki was a strong advocate for increasing female representation in technology.
In a 2013 interview with the BBC’s Newshour, she stressed the growing importance of digital influence while highlighting the gender disparity: “
There are very few women in the industry,” she said, noting that “the tech industry has, on average, probably about 20% women,” and the pipeline of girls entering technical fields was still limited.
Wojcicki’s time as YouTube’s leader was marked by both achievements and challenges.
The platform faced significant criticism, particularly regarding its handling of online disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2022, several fact-checking organizations accused YouTube of being “one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide.”
She stepped down a year later, prioritizing her personal life and health.
Her husband, Dennis Troper, announced her death with “profound sadness,” stating, “My beloved wife of 26 years and mother to our five children left us today after two years of living with non-small-cell lung cancer.”
Source-BBC
