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Susan Diane Wojcicki was born on July 5, 1968, in Santa Clara County, California. She was the daughter of Esther Wojcicki, an American journalist, and Stanley Wojcicki, a Polish physics professor at Stanford University. Her family background was rich in academic and cultural diversity, with her maternal grandparents being Russian Jewish immigrants and her paternal grandfather a Polish politician.
Wojcicki grew up on the Stanford University campus, where she was influenced by the academic environment. She attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, and showed early entrepreneurial spirit by selling “spice ropes” door-to-door at the age of eleven. She pursued higher education at Harvard University, where she studied history and literature, graduating with honors in 1990.
Initially planning a career in academia, she shifted her focus to technology, earning an MS in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1993, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1998.
Wojcicki’s career in the tech industry began with her involvement in the founding of Google. In 1998, she rented her garage to Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, marking the start of her long association with the company. She became Google’s first marketing manager in 1999 and later led the company’s online advertising business and original video service. Her strategic insight led to Google’s acquisition of YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.
In 2014, Wojcicki was appointed as the CEO of YouTube, a position she held until 2023. During her tenure, she focused on expanding YouTube’s business model, enhancing content moderation, and promoting educational content through initiatives like YouTube Learning. Under her leadership, YouTube became a dominant platform for video content globally.
Susan Wojcicki married Dennis Troper, a director of product management at Google, on August 23, 1998. The couple had five children together. Wojcicki was known for her advocacy of work-life balance, often speaking about the importance of paid maternity leave.
In addition to her American citizenship, Wojcicki held Polish citizenship through her father. Her personal life was marked by tragedy when her son Marco Troper passed away in February 2024.
Wojcicki was widely recognized for her contributions to the tech industry. She was named #1 on Vanity Fair’s New Establishment list in 2019 and featured on Forbes’ list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women multiple times. Her leadership and vision earned her a prominent place among America’s self-made women.
Susan Wojcicki passed away on August 9, 2024, after a two-year battle with non-small-cell lung cancer. Her legacy as a pioneering leader in the tech industry and her impact on digital media continue to be celebrated.
The image featured in this article comes from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.