Susan Wojcicki

Susan Wojcicki (1968–2024) was an American technology executive who served as CEO of YouTube from 2014 to 2023. She was one of Google's earliest and most influential employees, joining in 1999 as its 16th hire and first marketing manager — the company was famously founded in the garage of her Menlo Park home, which Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented as their first office.

At Google she built and led the advertising business as the first product manager of AdSense and later Senior Vice President of Advertising and Commerce, overseeing AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick and Analytics. She championed Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube and its purchase of DoubleClick, and as YouTube's CEO grew the platform past two billion logged-in monthly users while launching YouTube TV, Premium and Shorts. She was widely regarded as one of the most powerful women in technology.

Beyond her operating roles, Wojcicki served as an advisor and board member to companies and nonprofits, and Dealroom records her among the backers of Perplexity and Solace. She stepped down from YouTube in 2023 and died on 9 August 2024 at the age of 56, after living with non-small-cell lung cancer; her family has since supported lung-cancer research and early-detection efforts.