Tragedy has once more struck a well-known Silicon Valley household. Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki simply handed away, based on social media posts by her husband, Dennis Troper, and by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. She was 56.
Wrote Troper on Facebook earlier Friday evening, “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.”
“Susan was not just my best friend and partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to many. Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable. We are heartbroken, but grateful for the time we had with her. Please keep our family in your thoughts as we navigate this difficult time.”
Pichai additionally despatched a word to Google staff late Friday.
“By now you may have heard the news that Susan Wojcicki has passed away after two years of living with lung cancer. Even as I write this it feels impossible to me that it’s true. Susan was one of the most active and vibrant people I have ever met,” the word stated.
Non-small cell lung most cancers is one in every of two major sorts of lung most cancers and the commonest type, based on the Yale School of Medicine. Because its signs are sometimes mistaken for widespread sicknesses, 80 % of individuals recognized with the situation have already progressed to superior levels, based on a reality sheet related to the college.
Wojcicki’s passing comes on the heels of one other heart-breaking loss for Wojcicki and her husband in February of this 12 months, when their 19-year-old son, Marco Troper, died of an unintentional overdose in his dorm room on the University of California, Berkeley, the place he was a freshman.
Wojcicki rose to fame because the CEO of YouTube, a task she held for 9 years earlier than stepping down in early 2023, saying in a weblog put up on the time that she had “decided to start a new chapter focused on my family, health and personal projects I’m passionate about.”
Wojcicki was among the many first 20 staff of Google, which went on to accumulate YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion — what appeared like an astronomical quantity on the time. She famously grew to become concerned with the corporate after renting the storage of her Menlo Park, Calif., house to buddies Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who had been Ph.D. college students at Stanford on the time. (Google was restructured in 2015, at which level Alphabet grew to become its dad or mum firm.)
According to reviews over time, it was after observing the early traction of YouTube that Wojcicki herself — then a advertising and marketing supervisor at Google — proposed to Page and Brin that Google purchase the video streaming platform.
Under her management, YouTube grew to become a multibillion greenback money generator for Google. In 2023, YouTube posted $8.1 billion in income via advert gross sales — almost 10% of Alphabet’s complete income.
Wojcicki’s household has deep ties to Silicon Valley and to the Bay Area extra broadly. One of her sisters is 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki. Another sister, Janet, is a professor of pediatrics on the University of California, San Francisco. Meanwhile, their mom Esther Wojcicki, is a famend educator who has written extensively on increase profitable kids.
Here is the total memo Pichai despatched to Google staff:
Googlers,
By now you’ll have heard the information that Susan Wojcicki has handed away after two years of residing with lung most cancers. Even as I write this it feels inconceivable to me that it’s true. Susan was one of the crucial lively and vibrant folks I’ve ever met. Her loss is devastating for all of us who…
