Celebrating Women’s History Month: Influential Women in the Tech Industry — Susan Wojcicki
Bowling Green, KY (March 9, 2021) - To celebrate Women’s History Month, Connected Nation is profiling influential women in today’s technology industry. One is Susan Wojcicki. As the CEO of YouTube and one of Google’s first employees, Wojcicki has claimed a spot as one of the most influential women in online technology.
Wojcicki is highly educated and her credentials show just that. She studied history and literature at Harvard University(AB, 1990), economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (MS, 1993), and business at the University of California, Los Angeles (MBA, 1998).
In 1998, she returned to Silicon Valley to pursue her career in tech. This is when she let Googleco-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page rent her garage in Menlo Park, California to develop Google's search engine. She was then hired by Google in 1999 as their 16th employee to work on advertising.
Her first big breakthrough was in 2000 when she debuted AdWords, the clickable text-only advertisement that appears on Google search pages. This led to the creation of AdSense, which made Google the leader in online display advertising.
But her biggest accomplishment was the development of Google Video in 2005, which resulted in the company purchasing the popular video-sharing site YouTube for $1.65 billion. She worked on this video-sharing platform for many years and eventually she was named CEO of YouTube in 2014. The site is now worth an estimated $90 billion.
Along with running one of the most popular websites on the internet today, Wojcicki also advocates for more female representation in the technology industry. “Tech is an incredible force that will change our world in ways we can't anticipate. If that force is only 20% to 30% women, that is a problem,” said Wojcicki.
Wojcicki was ranked No. 13 in Forbes Power Women 2020 and is currently ranked No.41 on Forbes list of America's Self-Made Women. She shows women and young girls all over the world that women have a place in technology today and in the future.
Related Articles:
- Pushing through barriers: What value women bring to the job market
- Women who are changing the tech industry - Leah Busque