Tech
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Quits After 9 Years
(CTN NEWS) – After nine years as CEO of YouTube, which has revolutionized politics, society, and entertainment, Susan Wojcicki, a former Google executive who was instrumental in the company’s founding, is stepping down.
The 54-year-old Wojcicki announced her departure from YouTube in an email to staff members that was made public on Thursday.
She said she is doing so to “start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal initiatives I’m passionate about.”
She didn’t go into detail about her plans.
Wojcicki’s longtime collaborator Neal Mohan will take over as YouTube’s CEO in her place.
Wojcicki rose to prominence as one of the most esteemed female leaders in the predominately male tech sector, but she will always be known as Google’s first landlord.
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Wojcicki rented the garage of her Menlo Park, California house to the co-founders of Google for $1,700 per month shortly after they turned their search engine into a corporation in 1998.
Page and Brin, 25 years old at the time, worked on perfecting their search engine in Wojcicki’s garage for five months before transferring Google into a more official workplace and convincing their former landlord to join their company.
In her announcement of her leaving, Wojcicki stated, “It would be one of the best decisions of my life.”
Google purchased Wojcicki’s house in 2006 to memorialize the company’s beginnings, which are now valued at $1.2 trillion.
When Brin wed her sister, Anne, in 2007, he became Wojcicki’s brother-in-law during her time at Google. In 2015, Brin and Anne Wojcicki got divorced.
Wojcicki’s departure occurs as YouTube is going through one of its most difficult times since Google acquired it in 2006 for an estimated $1.65 billion.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaks during the introduction of YouTube TV at YouTube Space LA on Feb. 28, 2017, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
At the time, YouTube was a quirky video site frequently accused of copyright infringement. By the time the all-stock deal was finalized, its value had reached $1.76 billion.
Although it initially received criticism for spending so much money on a video service whose viability was in question, it ended up being a good deal for Google.
YouTube has become a global sensation with billions of viewers and has been financially successful with $29 billion in ad income in the previous year.
When YouTube’s financial earnings started to be disclosed in 2017, Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., reported $8 billion in annual ad revenue.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki attends a conference at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, in Cannes, France, June 19, 2018. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
Yet, over the final six months of 2017, YouTube’s ad revenue fell 5% from the prior year. This was the first significant decline the video site has experienced since Alphabet unveiled its financial details.
One of the reasons Alphabet’s stock price has dropped 11% since it released its most recent quarterly report two weeks ago is that analysts are concerned the downturn will continue this year.
Meanwhile, Wojcicki is departing just days before the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in a case that jeopardises YouTube’s trademark freewheeling style, which has long been considered one of its greatest strengths.
The complaint was brought by the family of an American lady who died in a 2015 Islamic State attack in Paris, which prompted them to claim that YouTube’s algorithms contributed to the terror group’s recruitment.
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Experts warn that the consequences might kill YouTube and upend the entire internet if the court rules that computer corporations can be held accountable for anything posted on their websites.
That’s because internet service providers are largely immune from liability for the content users upload on their networks under American law.
A legal “safe harbor” is provided for internet companies by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act,
Which is part of a larger telecom law. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the co-founders of YouTube, took advantage of this protection to launch a video site where users could “broadcast themselves.”
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