Cause of Death Released for Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, 56

Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has died at the age of 56, after two years of living with non small cell lung cancer, her husband, Dennis Troper, wrote in an August 10 statement on his Facebook page.

“It is with profound sadness that I share the news of Susan Wojcicki’s passing. My beloved wife of 26 years and mother to our five children left us today after 2 years of living with non small cell lung cancer,” he wrote.

“Susan was not just my best friend and partner in life, but a brilliant mind, a loving mother, and a dear friend to many. Her impact on our family and the world was immeasurable. We are heartbroken but grateful for the time we had with her. Please keep our family in your thoughts as we navigate this difficult time,” Troper added.

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai also confirmed Wojcicki’s death on X, writing, “Unbelievably saddened by the loss of my dear friend @SusanWojcicki after two years of living with cancer. She is as core to the history of Google as anyone, and it’s hard to imagine the world without her. 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. We will miss her dearly. Our thoughts with her family. RIP Susan.”

Wojcicki hadn’t posted publicly on her Facebook page since 2017 when she wrote posts about women in tech. Forbes estimated her 2024 net worth at about $800 million.

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Susan Wojcicki Got Her Start in Tech by Renting Her Garage to the Founders of Google

Wojcicki spoke to Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” about Google’s founders renting her garage when they were students.

“I owned a garage, and I was worried about covering the mortgage so I was willing to rent my garage to any student,” she told Stahl. “But then two students appeared. One was named Sergey Brin; the other was named Larry Page. They’re the founders of Google, but at the time they were just students. They looked like any students.”

They hired her as Google employee number 16, their first marketing manager, according to Stahl’s broadast.

According to Stahl’s broadcast, Google bought YouTube on her recommendation and then she became CEO with a mandate to make it grow and profitable, which “60 Minutes” said, she did.

In February, she wrote in a blog post, “Twenty-five years ago I made the decision to join a couple of Stanford graduate students who were building a new search engine. Their names were Larry and Sergey. I saw the potential of what they were building, which was incredibly exciting, and although the company had only a few users and no revenue, I decided to join the team. It would be one of the best decisions of my life.”

In that post, she announced that she was stepping back from her role as YouTube’s CEO. “Today, after nearly 25 years here, I’ve decided to step back from my role as the head of YouTube and start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about,” she wrote.

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Susan Wojcicki Suffered a Recent Tragedy When Her Son Died

Wojcicki’s son died earlier this year. Marco Troper was a 19-year-old student at the University of California-Berkeley, SFGate reported.

According to SFGate, Troper was found dead on campus on Tuesday, February 13. USA Today reported that Marco Troper died from an accidental overdose.

According to USA Today, Troper’s autopsy “found high concentrations of cocaine, amphetamine, alprazolam (Xanax), a medication prescribed to manage panic and anxiety disorders, and hydroxyzine, an antihistamine used to treat allergies and anxiety.”

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Tributes Flowed for Susan Wojcicki After Her Death

Kathi Vidal, a director at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, wrote a lengthy tribute to Wojcicki on Facebook.

“Today I am deeply saddened to lose one of my best friends and one of the most amazing humans I’ve ever known. Susan Wojcicki was a mother, wife and daughter first and foremost. She reinforced in me the value of putting family first. Most all of our meals were on Friday nights and her place spending time with Dennis Troper and her beautiful children who were friends with my boys. Our vacations were family vacations including with Esther Wojcicki and Stanley Wojcicki,” she wrote.

Vidal added,

She was caring and giving. We mentored women from other countries together with Megan Smith and fundraised to buy Susan Zakhe Rammekwa a bus for her orphanage in South Africa. And she was kind and modest. I met Susan at GeoKids where our kids went to daycare and where we worked as part of the co-op. (Susan would later create a daycare at Google modeled after GeoKids). I spent many hours at her modest house in Menlo Park. When she finally moved from that house she mentioned that she was not selling it. It wasn’t until then that I knew that Google had been created in her garage and that she was key to its launch and success as one of the first employees.

Matterport CEO RJ Pittman wrote on X, “Stunned. Heartbroken. Susan was one of a kind and a privilege to work with. Our hearts and prayers go out to whole family and to the @Google family she helped create and lead. 💔”

However, many others wrote critical posts on X about Wojcicki’s handling of YouTube, mostly surrounding censorship concerns. “She banned so many important voices because of her politics, including multiple channels that I owned. She did so much damage to free speech,” a man wrote on X.

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