Susan Wojcicki

Susan Diane Wojcicki (/wʊˈtʃɪtski/ woo-CHITS-kee;[1] born July 5, 1968) is an American business executive who was the chief executive officer (CEO) of YouTube from 2014 to 2023. Her net worth was estimated at $765 million in 2022.[2]

Susan Wojcicki
Wojcicki in 2016
Born (1968-07-05) July 5, 1968
Santa Clara County, California, U.S.
Education
Occupation(s)Business manager and executive advisor
TitleFormer CEO of YouTube
SuccessorNeal Mohan
Board member of
Spouse
Dennis Troper
​
(m. 1998)​
Children5
Parents
Relatives
Signature

Wojcicki has worked in the technology industry for over twenty years.[3][4] She became involved in the creation of Google in 1998 when she rented out her garage as an office to the company's founders. She worked as Google's first marketing manager in 1999, and later led the company's online advertising business and original video service. After observing the success of YouTube, she suggested that Google should buy it; the deal was approved for $1.65 billion in 2006. She was appointed CEO of YouTube in 2014, serving until resigning in February 2023.[5]

Early life

Susan Diane Wojcicki was born in Santa Clara County, California, on July 5, 1968,[6] the daughter of Esther Wojcicki, an American journalist, and Stanley Wojcicki, a Polish physics professor at Stanford University.[7] Her maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants.[8] Her paternal grandfather, Franciszek Wójcicki, was a Polish politician who had been elected MP during the 1947 Polish legislative election. Her paternal grandmother, Janina Wójcicka Hoskins, was a Polish-American librarian at the Library of Congress and was responsible for building the largest collection of Polish material in the U.S.[9] She has two sisters: Janet, a doctor of anthropology and epidemiology,[10] and Anne, an entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe.[11][12]

Wojcicki grew up on the Stanford campus, where mathematical scientist George Dantzig was her neighbor.[13] She attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, and wrote for the school newspaper.[14] Her first business was selling "spice ropes" door-to-door at the age of eleven. A humanities major in college, she took her first computer science class as a senior.[15] She studied history and literature at Harvard University and graduated with honors in 1990. She originally planned on getting a PhD in economics and pursuing a career in academia, but changed her plans when she discovered an interest in technology.[13] She also received her MS in economics in 1993 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MBA in 1998 from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.[16]

Career

Before Google

Before becoming Google's first marketing manager in 1999, Wojcicki worked in marketing at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, California,[13] and was a management consultant at Bain & Company and R.B. Webber & Company.[17]

Google

In September 1998, the same month that Google was incorporated, its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up office in Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, California.[18] At Google, she worked on the initial viral marketing programs, helped create the company's longtime logo with designer Ruth Kedar, and spearheaded the first Google Doodles.[19][20] She also co-developed and launched Google Image Search with engineer Huican Zhu.

In 2003, Wojcicki was the first product manager of one of Google's seminal advertising products—AdSense.[21] She earned the Google Founders' Award in recognition for this work.[22] Wojcicki was subsequently promoted to Google's senior vice president of Advertising & Commerce, and oversaw the company's advertising and analytic products, including AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick, and Google Analytics.[16][23]

YouTube, then a small start-up, was successfully competing with Google's Google Video service, overseen by Wojcicki. She recommended and subsequently managed the $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube in 2006.[16]

YouTube

In February 2014, Wojcicki became the CEO of YouTube.[24][25] She was named "the most important person in advertising,"[26] as well as named one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2015[27] and described in a later issue of Time as "the most powerful woman on the Internet."[28] In December 2014, she joined the board of Salesforce.[29] She also serves on the board of Room to Read,[30] an organization that focuses on literacy and gender equality in education, and is a board member of UCLA Anderson School of Management.[31]

After Wojcicki became the CEO of YouTube, the company reached 2 billion logged-in users a month[32] and that users were watching one billion hours a day.[33][34] By 2021, YouTube had paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies.[35] There are localized versions of YouTube in 100 countries around the world across 80 languages. Since she became CEO, YouTube's percentage of female employees has risen from 24 to nearly 30 percent.[36]

Wojcicki with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Warsaw in November 2018

Wojcicki also emphasized new YouTube applications and experiences designed to cater to users interested in family[37] gaming,[38] and music[39] content. While CEO, the company developed 10 forms of monetization for YouTube creators, including channel memberships, merchandise, BrandConnect, and paid digital goods like Super Chat.[40] She also launched YouTube's advertisement-free subscription service, YouTube Premium (formerly known as YouTube Red),[41] and its over-the-top (OTT) internet television service YouTube TV.[42] In 2020, the company launched YouTube Shorts, its short-form video experience,[43] which recently surpassed 50 billion daily views.[44] In November 2022, YouTube publicized that the company had surpassed 80 million Music and Premium subscribers, including trialers.[45] The company also reported over 100 billion hours of global gaming content watched on the platform in 2020.[46]

Wojcicki tightened YouTube's policy on videos it regards as potentially violating its policies on hate speech and violent extremism.[47] The more stringent policies came after The Times showed that "ads sponsored by the British government and several private sector companies had appeared ahead of YouTube videos supporting terrorist groups" and several large advertisers withdrew their ads from YouTube in response.[48] The enforcement policies have been criticized as censorship.[49] YouTube has also faced criticism that the company applies its enforcement policies inconsistently, with larger content creators treated more favorably. During the controversy surrounding Logan Paul's YouTube video about a person that committed suicide, Wojcicki said that Paul did not violate YouTube's three-strike policy and did not meet the criteria for being banned from the platform.[50]

Wojcicki has emphasized educational content as a priority for the company, and on July 20, 2018, announced the initiative YouTube Learning, which invests in grants and promotion to support education focused creator content.[51]

On October 22, 2018, Wojcicki wrote that Article 13, as written in the European Union Copyright Directive, would make YouTube directly liable for copyrighted content, and poses a threat to content creators' ability to share their work.[52]

On February 16, 2023, Wojcicki announced her resignation from YouTube via a company blog post. She said she wanted to focus on "family, health, and personal projects" but would be taking on an advisory role across Google and its parent company Alphabet.[5][53]

Advocacy

Wojcicki has been an advocate for several causes, including the expansion of paid family leave,[54] the plight of Syrian refugees,[55] countering gender discrimination at technology companies,[36][56] getting young girls interested in computer science, and prioritizing computer programming and coding in schools.[57]

Wojcicki endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[58]

Personal life

Wojcicki married Google's director of product management Dennis Troper in Belmont, California, on August 23, 1998.[59] They have five children. On December 16, 2014, ahead of taking her fifth maternity leave, she wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal about the importance of paid maternity leave. She is often quoted talking about the importance of finding the balance between family and career. In addition to her American citizenship,[60] Wojcicki holds Polish citizenship through her father.[61][62][63]

Awards

Wojcicki was named #1 on Vanity Fair's New Establishment list in 2019.[64]

  • In 2013, she was named #1 on the Adweek Top 50 Execs list, which recognizes the top media executives within an organization.[65]
  • In 2017, Wojcicki ranked #6 on Forbes' list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women.[15]
  • In 2018, she ranked #10 on Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women.[66]
  • Wojcicki is currently ranked #41 on Forbes' list of America's Self-Made Women.[15]

On April 15, 2021, Wojcicki was presented the “Free Expression Award” by the Freedom Forum Institute,[67] a nonprofit dedicated to advancing First Amendment freedoms.[68] The award ceremony was criticized for being sponsored by her own platform.[69]

References
  1. "#DearMe: Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube" on YouTube
  2. "#34 Susan Wojcicki". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 23, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2022.
  3. "YouTube's Susan Wojcicki: 'Where's the line of free speech – are you removing voices that should be heard?'". the Guardian. August 10, 2019. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  4. Connley, Courtney (August 20, 2019). "YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki: Here's what to say when men are talking over you at a meeting". CNBC. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  5. Elias, Jennifer (February 16, 2023). "YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki says she's stepping down". CNBC. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  6. "California Births, 1905 - 1995". Familytreelegends.com. Archived from the original on June 4, 2013. Retrieved March 15, 2014.
  7. Clifford, Catherine (June 18, 2018). "How Anne and Susan Wojcicki's parents raised the founder of 23andMe and the CEO of YouTube". CNBC. Archived from the original on January 3, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
  8. Tramiel, Preeva. "Esther Wojcicki: A Jewish mother of the tech revolution". Archived from the original on January 19, 2017. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
  9. Zalewski, Wojciech (October 1, 2011). "Janina Wójcicka Hoskins (1912–1996): Portrait of an Esteemed Librarian". Slavic & East European Information Resources. 12 (4): 224–236. doi:10.1080/15228886.2011.623117. ISSN 1522-8886. S2CID 144135260.
  10. Sellers, Patricia. "Before Google, the Wojcicki girls learned from Mom". Fortune.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  11. I raised 2 successful CEOs and a doctor—here’s one of the biggest mistakes I see parents making Archived September 5, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, Esther Wojcicki, Published Wed, May 8, 2019, cnbc.com.
  12. Clifford, Catherine (June 18, 2018). "How Anne and Susan Wojcicki's parents raised the founder of 23andMe and the CEO of YouTube". CNBC. Archived from the original on January 3, 2020. Retrieved October 28, 2019.
  13. Laporte, Nicole (August 6, 2014). "The Woman Behind the Superlatives: Three Things You Need to Know About Susan Wojcicki". The Fast Company. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  14. Sellers, Patricia (February 1, 2012). "Before Google, the Wojcicki girls learned from Mom". Fortune Magazine. Archived from the original on February 7, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  15. "Susan Wojcicki". Forbes. Archived from the original on October 25, 2017. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  16. Swift, Mike (February 7, 2011). "Susan Wojcicki: The most important Googler you've never heard of". San Jose Mercury News. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  17. "Susan Wojcicki". Time. Archived from the original on March 14, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  18. "Our history in depth – Company – Google". April 2, 2012. Archived from the original on April 2, 2012. Retrieved November 7, 2018.
  19. "Susan Wojcicki - "Inspirational 100" Alumna". UCLA Anderson School of Management. Archived from the original on March 4, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  20. Think Quarterly: Innovation (US). Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  21. "Profile Of Susan Wojcicki: Mother Of AdSense". Search Engine Land. July 5, 2007. Archived from the original on May 16, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  22. "The house that helped build Google - USATODAY.com". usatoday30.usatoday.com. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  23. Gustin, Sam (May 3, 2011). "Google Ad Chief Susan Wojcicki: 'The Book Isn't Finished'". Wired.com. Archived from the original on September 6, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  24. Orescovic, Alexi (February 5, 2014). "Google taps longtime executive Wojcicki to head YouTube". Reuters. Archived from the original on April 6, 2019. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  25. "Google Ads SVP Susan Wojcicki Takes Over At YouTube". February 5, 2014. Archived from the original on June 26, 2014. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  26. "Is This the Most Important Person in Advertising?". Archived from the original on January 10, 2021. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
  27. Grazer, Brian (April 16, 2015). "The 100 Most Influential People". Time. Archived from the original on October 19, 2016. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  28. Luscombe, Belinda (August 27, 2015). "Meet YouTube's Viewmaster". Time. Archived from the original on May 14, 2017. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  29. "Susan Wojcicki". Salesforce.com. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  30. "Board of Directors". www.roomtoread.org. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  31. "Susan Wojcicki ('89) - "The most important Googler you've never heard of"". UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog. Archived from the original on May 17, 2021. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  32. "YouTube Hits 2 Billion Monthly Users, As Number Of Channels With 1 Million Subscribers Doubled Last Year". Tubefilter. February 5, 2019. Archived from the original on April 2, 2019. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
  33. Hamedy, Saba. "YouTube just hit a huge milestone". Mashable. Archived from the original on December 22, 2020. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  34. "YouTube Claims 1.5 Billion Monthly Users in Latest Ad Sales Pitch". Fortune. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  35. "Letter from Susan: Our 2021 Priorities". blog.youtube. Archived from the original on December 23, 2021. Retrieved December 24, 2021.
  36. Wojcicki, Susan. "Exclusive: How to Break Up the Silicon Valley Boys' Club". The Hive. Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  37. Perez, Sarah. "Hands On With "YouTube Kids," Google's Newly Launched, Child-Friendly YouTube App". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  38. Dredge, Stuart (August 26, 2015). "Google launches YouTube Gaming to challenge Amazon-owned Twitch". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  39. "YouTube Music is here, and it's a game changer". The Verge. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  40. "10 ways to monetize on YouTube". YouTube Blog. Archived from the original on August 3, 2021. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  41. "Google wants you to pay $9.99 per month for ad-free YouTube | VentureBeat". venturebeat.com. October 22, 2015. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  42. Lee, Dave (March 1, 2017). "YouTube takes on cable with new service". BBC News. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  43. "Building YouTube Shorts, a new way to watch & create on YouTube". blog.youtube. Archived from the original on June 10, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  44. Ivan Mehta (February 3, 2023). "Google says YouTube Shorts has crossed 50 billion daily views". Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  45. Lyor Cohen (November 9, 2022). "We hit 80 million?!". Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  46. "2020 is YouTube Gaming's biggest year, ever: 100B watch time hours". blog.youtube. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2021.
  47. "An update on our commitment to fight violent extremist content online". YouTube Blog. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  48. Alba, Davey (March 25, 2017). "YouTube's Ad Problems Finally Blow Up in Google's Face". WIRED. Archived from the original on September 5, 2017. Retrieved September 4, 2017.
  49. Hern, Alex (March 21, 2017). "To censor or not to censor? YouTube's double bind". theguardian. Archived from the original on August 8, 2017. Retrieved August 29, 2017.
  50. Newton, Casey (February 12, 2018). "YouTube's CEO says Logan Paul doesn't deserve to be kicked off the platform". The Verge. Archived from the original on October 18, 2018. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
  51. "Mid-year update on our five creator priorities for 2018". YouTube Blog. Archived from the original on August 4, 2020. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  52. "A final update on our priorities for 2018". blog.youtube. Archived from the original on December 8, 2021. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  53. "YouTube CEO Wojcicki, one of the first Google employees, steps down". Reuters. February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  54. Wojcicki, Susan (December 16, 2014). "Paid Maternity Leave Is Good for Business". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on May 13, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  55. "Susan Wojcicki: Refugees Are Trying to Escape Terror—Not Create It". Time. Archived from the original on August 30, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  56. Isidore, Chris. "YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on gender discrimination: It still hurts". CNNMoney. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  57. Wojcicki, Susan (January 27, 2016). "Closing the Tech Industry Gender Gap". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on August 21, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  58. Mandelbaum, R., More Business Leaders Sign On With Clinton Archived October 10, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Forbes, September 23, 2016.
  59. "Weddings". Palo Alto Weekly. November 11, 1998. Archived from the original on January 30, 2015. Retrieved October 4, 2014.
  60. ["Forbes Profile Susan Wojcicki". Forbes. Archived from the original on July 19, 2017. Retrieved August 1, 2017.
  61. Kafka, Peter (August 12, 2014). "New YouTube Boss Susan Wojcicki Talks Talent, Music and M&A (Q&A)". Re/code. Archived from the original on April 17, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  62. Paid Maternity Leave Is Good for Business Archived May 13, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, The Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2014
  63. Hirsch, Rafał (March 28, 2017). "Prezes YouTube właśnie przyjechała do Polski. A to dopiero początek dość niesamowitej historii". next.Gazeta.pl (in Polish). Archived from the original on May 16, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  64. "Vanity Fair New Establishment List 2019". Vanity Fair. October 3, 2019. Archived from the original on October 8, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  65. "The Top 50 Execs Who Make the Wheels Turn". Adweek. October 28, 2013. Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved March 15, 2014.
  66. Bellstrom, Kristen (September 24, 2018). "Patti Davis, Rihanna, Fortune Most Powerful Women 2018: Broadsheet September 24". Fortune. Archived from the original on October 18, 2018. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
  67. "2021 Free Expression Awards". Freedom Forum. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
  68. "About". Freedom Forum. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
  69. Zhao, Christina (April 20, 2021). "YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Gets Freedom Expression Award Sponsored by YouTube". Newsweek. NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC. Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Susan Wojcicki.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.