Susan Wojcicki, the former head of YouTube and one of Google's earliest employees, has died at the age of 56.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai announced the death of Ms Wojcicki, who had been battling lung cancer for two years.
Mr Pichai, head of Google's parent company Alphabet, said on X/Twitter that he was « incredibly saddened » and that Ms Wojcicki was « as important as anyone in Google's history ».
Ms. Wojcicki, once described as « the most important Googler you've never heard of, » was at the company's inception when she was hired in 1998. His Menlo Park garage To Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of the search engine company.
He was then persuaded to leave his job at chip company Intel to join Google, becoming the company's 16th employee.
Ms Wojcicki will lead YouTube, the Google-owned online video sharing company, for nine years until 2023, when she will focus on « my family, health and personal projects that I'm passionate about ».
Ms Wojcicki is one of relatively few women to hold senior roles in the technology industry.
She also wanted to encourage women to enter the field. told the BBC's Newshour in 2013 The future is going to be « increasingly digitally influenced ».
“But I see very few women in the industry,” she said. « Overall, the tech industry is, on average, 20% women, and I also see the pipeline of women coming out of tech degrees, which is very small. »
Although Ms. Wojcicki rose to become YouTube's boss, her tenure was not without controversy. The site has faced criticism for its handling of online misinformation, including during the Covid pandemic.
In 2022, several fact-checking organizations wrote to him accusing YouTube of being « one of the leading conduits of online misinformation and disinformation worldwide ».
Ms Wojcicki stepped down after a year to focus on her personal life and health.
Announcing her death with « deep sadness », her husband Dennis Troper said: « My beloved wife of 26 years and mother of our five children left us today after two years of living with small-cell lung cancer. »
