When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, they needed office space. Management consultant Susan Wojcicki provided her garage — and, over the years, so much more.

Hired as Google employee #16, Wojcicki went on to play several defining roles in the company: she was Google’s first marketing manager in 1999; she product-managed the launch of Google Image Search in 2001; she was AdSense’s first product manager in 2003; and, while heading the nascent Google Video division, she initiated and managed Google’s acquisition of competitor YouTube in 2006.

In 2014, Wojcicki was appointed CEO of YouTube. Over the next nine years, she oversaw the service’s expansion into multiple countries, languages, and brands, including YouTube Premium, TV, Shorts, Music, and Gaming. The platform’s annual advertising revenue now exceeds $50 billion.

Throughout her career, Wojcicki’s work embodied the early days of Google, which she defined as “incredible product and technology innovation, huge opportunities, and a healthy disregard for the impossible.” She stepped down as YouTube CEO in February 2023, remaining in an advisory role at parent company Alphabet. She passed away 18 months later at age 56 from lung cancer.