• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 10, 2024

Susan Wojcicki, an ambitious innovator who wanted to reinvent television at Google, has died of lung cancer at the age of 56.

Wojcicki played an important role in developing technology that distributes advertising dollars across the internet. She joined Google as one of its earliest employees and led the development of its AdSense product for publishers. The software allows Google to serve ads to millions of websites as a third-party broker.

She held the position of senior vice president of ad products at Google, and later was instrumental in the company acquiring YouTube, the video service that led the company into television. Google purchased the website YouTube in 2006 for about $1.65 billion.

Wojcicki's journey to change advertising and television began years earlier while working at Intel. Wojcicki and her husband, whom she married in 1998, became part of Google's startup story after renting the ground floor and garage of their Menlo Park, California home to Sergey Brin and Larry Page. That is where Brin and Page began to create Google.

When Wojcicki became CEO of YouTube in 2014, she would give the opening keynote at Vidcon, cheering on creators and TV enthusiasts. The event became an annual gathering for the industry, held initially in Anaheim, California.

Wojcicki ceded the position of YouTube CEO in 2023, citing a desire to focus on family, health and personal projects, and remained an advisor to Alphabet.

Dennis Troper, Wojcicki’s husband, wrote in a Facebook post that she had been living with lung cancer for two years. “Susan was not just my best friend and partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to many,” he wrote. “Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable.”

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai posted a tribute to Wojcicki on X. “She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it's hard to imagine the world without her,” he wrote. “She was an incredible person, leader and friend who had a tremendous impact on the world and I’m one of countless Googlers who is better for knowing her.”

Wojcicki is survived by her husband and four of their children. Their son Marco Troper died at age 19 in February.