Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube who resigned last year in order to focus more on her family and health, died this week at the age of 56.
Her death was confirmed late Friday evening by her husband, Dennis Troper, and subsequently announced by Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
The cause of death was attributed to cancer, which Wojcicki had been battling for two years, according to Pichai.
Wojcicki was one of the first employees at Google, joining the company in the late 1990s. She also served as Google’s first landlord, in that she rented out her Silicon Valley garage to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for $1,700 a month.
Her first role with the company was leading Google’s core advertising products, including AdWords and AdSense, a position she held until June 2014. Afterward, she was promoted to the CEO of YouTube, which Google acquired in late 2006, helping to build it into a financially-profitable, streaming video powerhouse.
Her resignation last year was unexpected, something many attributed to ongoing financial pressures at YouTube due to a softening in the advertising market, which impacted the product’s revenue.
She cited a desire to spend more time on personal activities, her family and her health among the reasons for stepping away from her day-to-day leadership duties at YouTube, though she remained at Alphabet and Google in an advisory role.
Earlier this year, Wojcicki suffered a personal setback when her son, 19-year-old Marco Troper, was found dead in his dorm room on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Campus police said they suspected Troper died from a drug overdose.
Wojcicki left behind her husband, parents and four children.
“Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable,” Dennis Troper wrote in a statement honoring his wife. “We are heartbroken, but grateful for the time we had with her.”
