Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO  and one of Google’s earliest employees, has died aged 56.

Her husband, Dennis Troper, broke the news in a Facebook post, writing on August 10th: “It is with profound sadness that I share the news of Susan Wojcicki 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.”

Wojcicki was present at the Google’s beginnings when, in 1998, she rented out her Menlo Park garage, external to the search engine firm’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. She was later persuaded to leave her job at chip giant Intel to join Google, and was believed to be the company’s sixteenth employee.

Wojcicki would go on to head YouTube, the online video sharing portal owned by Google, for nine years until February 2023 when she stepped down to focus “on my family, health and personal projects I’m passionate about”.

“I’m so proud of everything we’ve achieved,” Wojcicki wrote when announcing her departure from YouTube. “It’s been exhilarating, meaningful, and all-consuming.”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressed condolences in a post on X, saying: “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.”