Langgam Pos - Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube and a prominent Google executive, passed away on Saturday at the age of 56. Her death follows a two-year battle with lung cancer.
Dennis Troper, Wojcicki's husband, announced the news on Facebook, expressing profound sadness. "It is with deep sorrow that I share the news of Susan Wojcicki's passing," Troper wrote, as reported by Reuters on August 10, 2024. "My beloved wife, who has stood by me for 26 years and is the mother of our five children, left us today after living with small-cell lung cancer for two years."
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, paid tribute to Wojcicki in a blog post. "Despite facing significant personal challenges over the last two years, Susan dedicated herself to making the world a better place through her philanthropic efforts, including supporting research into the disease that ultimately took her life," Pichai said.
Wojcicki was a leading figure in technology, joining Google in 1999 as one of the company's early employees, several years before Google acquired YouTube. Google purchased YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
Susan Wojcicki's Career Highlights
Before becoming CEO of YouTube in 2014, Wojcicki served as Google's Senior Vice President for advertising products. After leading YouTube for nine years, she stepped down in 2023 to focus on "family, health, and personal projects."
She was succeeded by Neal Mohan, her deputy, who had joined Google in 2008 and was a senior executive in advertising and products. Wojcicki was set to take on an advisory role at Alphabet, Google's parent company.
In a blog post on the day she left YouTube, Wojcicki reflected on her career with Google: "Twenty-five years ago, I made the decision to join a group of Stanford graduate students who were building a new search engine. Their names were Larry and Sergey.... It turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life," she wrote, referring to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
"We at YouTube today mourn the loss of a teammate, mentor, and friend, Susan Wojcicki," Mohan wrote in a post on the X platform.
Wojcicki's death marks the end of a remarkable era for one of the most influential figures in technology. Her contributions to both Google and YouTube have left a lasting impact on the tech industry, and her legacy will be remembered for years to come.
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