YouTube’s former chief executive and long-time Google executive Susan Wojcicki died on Friday, August 9, at the age of 56 after a two-year battle with lung cancer.
“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,” Dennis Troper, Wojcicki’s husband, said in a Facebook post. One of the most prominent women in tech, Wojcicki joined Google in 1999 to become one of the first few employees of the web search leader, years before it acquired YouTube.
She served as YouTube’s CEO for nine years and played a crucial role in Google’s success.
Wojcicki resigned from her position at YouTube — after 25 years with the parent company Alphabet/Google — in Feb. 2023 to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects.”
Wojcicki and Troper married in 1998 and share five children.
In February, Wojcicki’s son Marco Troper was found dead inside a University of California, Berkeley dorm room. The 19-year-old succumbed to a combination of high amounts of alprazolam – an anti-anxiety drug sometimes sold as Xanax – as well as cocaine, amphetamine, and the antihistamine hydroxyzine, SFGATE reported.
Low levels of THC were also in his system, the outlet added, citing the coroner’s report from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. The levels of alprazolam and cocaine found in Troper’s blood were high enough to result in death, the officials said.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai remembered Wojcicki as an “incredible leader” who played a crucial role in the company’s success.
“Unbelievably saddened by the loss of my dear friend (Susan Wojcicki) after two years of living with cancer,” Pichai said in a statement on X.
“She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it’s hard to imagine the world without her.
“She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and I’m one of countless Googlers who is better for knowing her. We will miss her dearly.”
“Over the last two years, even as she dealt with great personal difficulties, Susan devoted herself to making the world better through her philanthropy, including supporting research for the disease that ultimately took her life,” Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai also said in a blog post.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan honored his predecessor early Saturday, August 10.
“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,” Mohan said.
“I am forever grateful for her friendship and guidance. I will miss her tremendously. My heart goes out to her family and loved ones.”
