Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO and longtime Google executive, dies at 56

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaks during a talk at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, May 24, 2022. Wojcicki died, according to a statement shared Friday by her husband. Markus Schreiber/Associated Press, file

Susan Wojcicki, a pioneering technology executive who helped shape Google and YouTube, has died, her husband said. She was 56.

Wojcicki played a key role in founding Google and served as YouTube’s CEO for nine years before stepping down last year to focus on “family, health, and personal projects that I’m passionate about,” she said at the time.

She was one of the most respected women executives in the male-dominated technology industry.

Her partnership with Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin began shortly after they incorporated their search engine into the company in 1998. Wojcicki rented a garage in Menlo Park, California, where they lived for $1,700 a month, solidifying their partnership. Page and Brin—both 25—spent five months honing their search engine in Wojcicki’s garage before moving Google to a more formal office and later persuading their former owner to come and work for the company.

“Her loss is devastating for all of us who know and love her, for the thousands of Googlers she led over the years, and for the millions of people around the world who admired her, benefited from her support and leadership, and were impacted by the incredible things she created at Google, YouTube, and beyond,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a note to employees.

“My beloved wife of 26 years and mother of our five children passed away today after two years of living with non-small cell lung cancer,” her husband, Dennis Troper, said in a post on social media late Friday evening.

“Susan was not only my best friend and life partner, but also a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a close friend to many people,” the Troper added.

No other details about her death were released.

Marco Troper, the 19-year-old son of Wojcicki and Troper, died in February on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, where he was living as a freshman.