She said she is stepping down to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about.”
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki (54) is stepping back from her post. Her legacy will be followed by Neal Mohan, an Indo-American. He is presently the chief product officer of YouTube.
She said she is stepping down to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I’m passionate about.” The decision was made public in an email sent to the employees which was posted on YouTube on Thursday.
Neal Mohan became a part of the company in 2015. Before that, he worked as Google’s senior vice president for several years. He helped her to operate the company for almost 15 years. She believes that Mohan is perfect to replace her position as he contributed significantly to the growth of the video streaming platform. Along with guiding the firm’s trust and safety team, he introduced various products like YouTube Music, YouTube TV, Premium, and Shorts.
From Google to YouTube
As she resigns, her 25-year journey with Google comes to an end which she began in 1998 after working in the tech industry for about 20 years. Her association with Google began when she gave her garage space for rent to the company’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to start an office.
In 1999, she joined Google as the corporation’s first marketing manager. She proceeded to head the company’s online advertising business and original video service for 14 years. Seeing YouTube, back then a startup, being a good competition to Google’s video service, Wojcicki suggested the company buy it. A successful purchase of $1.65 Billion took place in 2006 and she became the CEO of YouTube in February 2014.
Susan made sure that she addressed the problems and feedback of all the content creators. The percentage of female employees on YouTube increased once she occupied the CEO post. She made the space more accessible to advertisers. The firm, under her direction, turned out to be the most used video-displaying platform in the world. The platform now has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users.
In 2019, YouTube and Google had to pay $170 million to resolve a case accusing the platform of violating children’s privacy laws. In 2020, when the pandemic hit the world, Wojcicki was strongly criticized for not effectively restraining the misinformation that was spreading through YouTube. Her resignation’s impact on the company is unpredictable as it is nearly facing a setback from certain short-form video platforms like TikTok.
Wojcicki has also used her position for the betterment of society. She advocated for the expansion of paid family leave, broadened female recruitment to eradicate gender discrimination in technology, initiated computer programming and coding in schools, and inspired girls to take up computer science.
She announced her retirement through her Twitter profile as well on February 16th 2023.
-Kavya Pradeep M
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