Former YouTube CEO and Google Executive Susan Wojcicki Passes Away at 56

Prominent Business Leader Susan Wojcicki Dies at 56

Promi­nent busi­ness exec­u­tive Susan Woj­ci­c­ki, who served as the CEO of YouTube for nine years and played a cru­cial role in Google’s suc­cess, died at the age of 56 on Friday.

Woj­ci­c­ki had been liv­ing with non-small cell lung can­cer for the past two years.

Wojcicki’s Significant Contributions to Google and YouTube

Woj­ci­c­ki had close ties with Google founders Lar­ry Page and Sergey Brin and was one of their first employees.

She rent­ed her small Men­lo Park home­’s garage to Page and Brin in Sep­tem­ber 1998, the same month the inter­net giant was incorporated. 

In 2006, while over­see­ing Google’s video ser­vices, Woj­ci­c­ki rec­om­mend­ed the tech giant acquire YouTube, which was even­tu­al­ly bought for $1.65 billion.

Woj­ci­c­ki was appoint­ed CEO of YouTube in 2014 and named one of Time Mag­a­zine’s 100 most influ­en­tial peo­ple the fol­low­ing year.

Wojcicki’s Resignation and Personal Tragedy

Woj­ci­c­ki resigned from her posi­tion at YouTube in Feb­ru­ary 2023 to “start a new chap­ter focused on my fam­i­ly, health, and per­son­al projects.” 

Trag­i­cal­ly, just months lat­er, her son Mar­co Trop­er was found dead inside a Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley dorm room at the age of 19, suc­cumb­ing to a com­bi­na­tion of drug overdose.

Tributes and Remembrances from Industry Leaders

Google CEO Sun­dar Pichai remem­bered Woj­ci­c­ki as an “incred­i­ble leader” who played a cru­cial role in the com­pa­ny’s success. 

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan also hon­ored his pre­de­ces­sor, say­ing, “Today we @youtube lost a team­mate, men­tor, and friend, @SusanWojcicki.

I had the good for­tune of meet­ing Susan 17 years ago when she was the archi­tect of the Dou­bleClick acqui­si­tion. Her lega­cy lives on in every­thing she touched @google and @youtube.”