Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO, dies at 56

Tragedy has struck yet again for a prominent Silicon Valley family. Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has died, according to social media posts by her husband Dennis Tropper and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. She was 56.

“I am deeply saddened to share the news of the death of Susan Wojcicki “Departure. My beloved wife of 26 years and mother of five left us today after living with non-small cell lung cancer for two years.”

“Susan was not only my best friend and life partner, but she was also a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to so many. Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable. We are deeply saddened, but grateful for the time we had with her. Please keep our family in your thoughts as we navigate this difficult time.”

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 University School of Medicine. Because its symptoms are often mistaken for more common diseases, 80 percent of people diagnosed with the condition have already advanced to advanced stages, according to a fact sheet linked to the university.

Wojcicki and Tropper had each suffered a painful loss in February of this year when their 19-year-old son, Marco Tropper, died of an accidental overdose in his dorm room at UC Berkeley, where he was a freshman.

Fujisaki gained notoriety as YouTube’s CEO, a role she held for nine years before stepping down in early 2023, saying in a blog post at the time that she had “decided to start a new chapter focused on my family, my health, and the personal projects I’m passionate about.”

Vojsky was among the first 20 employees at Google, which acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion—a sum that seemed astronomical at the time. She famously got involved with the company after renting out her garage in Menlo Park, California, to friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were both PhD students at Stanford University at the time. (Google was restructured in 2015, at which point Alphabet became its parent company.)

According to reports over the years, after noticing YouTube’s early traction, Wojciechowski herself — then a marketing manager at Google — suggested to Page and Brin that Google buy the video streaming platform.

Under her leadership, YouTube has become a multi-billion dollar revenue generator for Google. In 2023, YouTube generated $8.1 billion in revenue from advertising sales — roughly 10% of Alphabet’s total revenue.

The Vojski family has deep ties to Silicon Valley and the Bay Area in general. One of their sisters is 23andMe CEO Anne Vojski. Another sister, Janet, is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. Meanwhile, their mother, Esther Vojski, is a renowned educator who has written extensively on how to raise successful children.