Tragedy has struck another prominent Silicon Valley family: Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has died at the age of 56, according to social media posts from her husband Dennis Troper and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
“It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of Susan Wojcicki. My beloved wife of 26 years and mother of our five children passed away today after a two-year battle with non-small cell lung cancer,” Troper posted on Facebook early Friday night.
“Susan was not only my best friend and life partner, she was a brilliant mind, a loving mother and a dear friend to so many. Her impact on our family and the world is immeasurable. We are heartbroken but grateful for the time we shared. Please keep our family in your thoughts as we get through this difficult time.”
I am incredibly saddened by the loss of my dear friend. Susan Wojcicki After a two-year battle with cancer, she has been as central to Google's history as anyone and it's hard to imagine the world without her. She was an incredible person, leader and friend and lived an incredible life.
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) August 10, 2024
Pichai also sent a memo to Google employees late Friday.
“You may have already heard the news that Susan Wojcicki has passed away after a two-year battle with lung cancer. As I write this, I still can't believe it's true. Susan was one of the most dynamic and vibrant people I have ever met,” the note read.
Non-small cell lung cancer is one of the two main types of lung cancer and is the most common type, according to the Yale School of Medicine. Its symptoms are often mistaken for common illnesses, and 80% of people diagnosed with the disease are already in an advanced stage, according to a fact sheet published by the school.
Wojcicki's death comes on the heels of another heartbreaking loss for her and her husband in February, when their 19-year-old son, Marco Troper, died of an accidental drug overdose in his dorm room while he was a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wojcicki rose to fame as YouTube's CEO, a role he held for nine years until stepping down in early 2023, but said in a blog post at the time that he was “starting a new chapter focusing on my family, health and personal projects I'm passionate about.”
Wojcicki was one of Google's first 20 employees before it acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, a sum that seemed astronomical at the time. She famously got involved with the company when she rented the garage of her Menlo Park, Calif., home to friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were PhD students at Stanford University at the time. (Google restructured in 2015, at which point it became parent company Alphabet.)
According to reports over the years, after observing YouTube's early momentum, Wojcicki, who was then a marketing manager at Google, personally approached Page and Brin about Google acquiring the video-streaming platform.
Under her leadership, YouTube has become a multibillion-dollar revenue generator for Google: In 2023, YouTube generated $8.1 billion in revenue from ad sales, nearly 10% of Alphabet's total revenue.
Wojcicki's family has deep ties to Silicon Valley and the Bay Area more broadly: One of her sisters is 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki, and another sister, Janet, is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, while her mother, Esther Wojcicki, is a prominent educator and author of numerous books on how to raise successful kids.
Below is the full text of Pichai's memo to Google employees:
Dear Googlers,
You may have already heard the news that Susan Wojcicki has passed away after a two-year battle with lung cancer. As I write this, I still can't believe it's true. Susan was one of the most dynamic and vibrant people I've ever met. Her passing is heartbreaking for all of us who knew and loved her, for the thousands of Googlers she led over the years, and for the millions of people around the world who looked up to her, benefited from her activism and leadership, and felt the impact of the great things she created at Google, YouTube, and beyond.
Susan's journey is inspiring in every way, from renting a garage with Larry and Sergey to leading a consumer products team to build an advertising business to becoming CEO of one of the most important platforms in the world: YouTube. But she didn't stop there. As one of Google's first employees and the first to take maternity leave, Susan used her position to build a better work environment for everyone. And in the years that followed, her advocacy for parental leave set a new standard for any company. Susan also had a deep passion for education. She realized early on that YouTube could be a learning platform for the world, and she supported “edutubers,” who specifically extended STEM education to underserved communities.
Over the past two years, Susan has faced great personal challenges and dedicated herself to making the world a better place through her charitable work, including supporting research into the disease that ultimately took her life. I know it meant a lot to her, and I'm so glad she made the time to do so.
Susan always put others first, both in her values and in her daily life. I will never forget the kindness she showed me as a future “New Grammer” 20 years ago. During my interview at Google, she took me out for ice cream and walked around the campus. I fell in love with Google and with Susan.
I was, as I'm sure you would agree, incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to work closely with Susan over the years. She was dearly loved by the team here, and although her time on this earth was all too short, she cherished every minute.
We are in close contact with Susan's family, including her husband and fellow Googler, Dennis, and will share more details soon about how we plan to celebrate Susan's incredible life. In the meantime, let's honour her memory and continue to build a Google that she would have been proud of.