Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki's 'most important lesson' revealed in final message she wrote while dying of cancer
YouTube released a final statement from former CEO Susan Wojcicki that revealed her 'most important life lesson' before she died from lung cancer in August.
Wojcicki, who was the CEO of YouTube from 2014 to 2023, wrote the short message in 'the final weeks of her life' and intended to publish it this fall, according to current CEO Neal Mohan.
In the message, she talks about her initial diagnosis, her support for cancer research and the most important lesson she wanted to impart on her fellow human beings.
That lesson was to enjoy the simple beauty of everyday life.
'Having cancer hasn’t been easy. As a person I have changed a lot, and probably the most important lesson I have learned is just to focus and enjoy the present!' she wrote. 'Life is unpredictable for everyone, with many unknowns, but there is a lot of beauty in everyday life.'
Wojcicki also revealed how surprised she was when she was told she had cancer.
'I had almost no symptoms and was running a few miles a day at the time. I had never smoked so I was totally shocked with this diagnosis,' she wrote.
That's when she began digging up some startling statistics about lung cancer showing how women are disproportionately affected.
Wojcicki, who was the CEO of YouTube from 2014 to 2023, urged people to enjoy life and embrace how unpredictable it is in her final message written while she was dying from cancer
She pointed out that about two-thirds of lung cancer cases among non-smokers are women. Women who have never smoked are more than twice as likely to develop lung cancer than men who have never smoked.
Not only that, current research also indicates that lung cancer is rising among non-smokers regardless of gender.
Wojcicki and her husband Dennis Troper, who had already been donating to various cancer causes, stepped up her involvement in lung cancer research after her diagnosis.
'We quickly learned lung cancer was under researched and misunderstood. We have since given millions of dollars to support early detection research, new immunotherapy options that could cure cancer, building a community of genotyped patients to better understand the disease, and fundamental research to better understand the mechanisms and science behind the cancers,' she wrote.
She ended her note by saying: 'My goals going forward are to enjoy the present as much as possible and fight for better understanding and cures for this disease.'
YouTube shared her message because November in Lung Cancer Awareness Month.
Wojcicki and her husband Dennis Troper shared five children together
Wojcicki's death came months after her son Marco Troper (center) died from a drug overdose
Wojcicki died on August 9 in Santa Clara, California.
Wojcicki was a well-known figure in the tech world, especially when she was at the helm of YouTube.
Earlier in her career when she was an executive at Google, she was credited with pushing Google to buy YouTube.
She became the video-sharing site's chief executive eight years after the $1.65 billion purchase in 2006.
Wojcicki and her husband shared five children together, however their family experienced tragedy in February when their son Marco Troper was found dead from an apparent drug overdose.
Marco, 19, was a freshman at UC Berkeley and was found unresponsive in the Clark Kerr student complex.
