The professional rise of Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube
Once upon a time, a woman rented her garage to the founders of Google in 1998 and later climbed the ranks in a meteoric career to become the successful CEO of YouTube: Susan Wojcicki.
The success of a CEO who played a vital role at Google
Most landlords only expect their tenants to pay on time, keep the space tidy, and not bother the neighbors. But Susan Wojcicki’s tenants ended up offering something more: the opportunity to become the 16th employee of a brand-new search engine called Google.
Of course, it took more than this amazing twist of fate for Wojcicki to rise through Google’s ranks.
From expanding the company’s advertising business to convincing founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to purchase a promising video-sharing service called YouTube, Wojcicki played a key role in helping Google become one of the world’s most valuable companies.
In addition to leading YouTube — the second most important social network in the world — Susan Wojcicki is married and has five children.
This woman, successful both at home and in business, gave birth to her fifth child in 2014.
Google supported her through maternity leave, and she made sure to raise awareness about the issue: she wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal highlighting the importance of companies supporting their female employees when they start a family.
The high-level executive not only defends this right, but also centers her leadership on ensuring workplace conditions promote a healthy balance between productivity, career, and family.
Background and history of the YouTube CEO
Daughter of Esther, an educator of Russian-Jewish descent, and Stanley, a Polish-American physics professor at Stanford, Wojcicki has two sisters who are also successful in their fields. The three daughters were raised with the belief that education was the key to dreams and goals, and that meaningful work should give structure to one’s life project.
Raised to be a leader, Susan’s academic background was not originally in tech. She studied literature and history at Harvard University and graduated with highest honors in 1990.
Though she originally considered pursuing a PhD in economics, her discovery of technology became a passion, and she decided to build a career in the field.
She worked in marketing at Intel and then came Google — thanks to her now-famous tenants — who valued her enthusiasm and drive more than an extensive academic background or long experience. That was what mattered most to them.
By 1999, she was Google’s marketing director and was behind some of the company’s first viral hits and early Doodles.
Born in California, Wojcicki rose through the ranks and became part of successful projects like Google Images and Google Books.
She later became senior vice president of advertising & commerce, where she was responsible for the groundbreaking ideas behind AdWords, DoubleClick, Google Analytics, and AdSense.
These tools now account for 96% of Google’s revenue.
Susan Wojcicki: a legendary CEO
It was Wojcicki herself who suggested to Google’s board the acquisition of YouTube, foreseeing its exponential growth when it was still owned by three former PayPal employees.
Negotiations began in 2005 and were finalized in October 2006 for $1.65 billion.
By February 2014, the “baby” had grown so much that Wojcicki herself asked to take the helm of YouTube, now part of Google Inc. She was rewarded for her unstoppable talent in digital business and was included in Forbes’ list of the 100 most powerful women in the world that year, as well as the three previous years (2011, 2012, and 2013).
Impressive!