Susan Wojcicki's key role in Google’s success precedes her tenure at the search giant, where she started her career in 1999 as senior vice president of Adwords and AdSense. Prior to that, Wojcicki was known for renting out her Silicon Valley garage to founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998 to house the servers of what would become the world's search engine behemoth. She eventually convinced the company to buy YouTube in 2006, with her becoming the service's CEO, and after more than two decades at Google, Wojcicki is stepping down from her position at the streaming video giant.

Wojcicki announced her departure in a letter to employees, stating that she is leaving to "start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I'm passionate about." According to her LinkedIn profile, Wojcicki became YouTube's CEO in 2014 after more than 14 years of building Google's advertising and analytic products.

Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer since 2015, will succeed Wojcicki as CEO. Mohan has been with YouTube for over 14 years, and Wojcicki highlighted his role in creating building products such as YouTube Music, Kids, and VR, as well as YouTube Premium and YouTube TV.

Prior to his current role, Mohan was a senior vice president for Google's display and video ads business from 2008 to 2015. He joined Google in 2007 with the DoubleClick acquisition before getting promoted to the SVP role a year later. According to Wojcicki, Mohan also led the company’s trust and safety team.

"In the longer term, I’ve agreed with Sundar to take on an advisory role across Google and Alphabet," Wojcicki said in the letter. "This will allow me to call on my different experiences over the years to offer counsel and guidance across Google and the portfolio of Alphabet companies."

In addition to overseeing AdSense, she also co-created Google Image Search and guided YouTube through several changes over the past decade. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission fined Google between $150 and $200 million over children's privacy problems on YouTube. The settlement forced the company to turn off comments and personalized ads on children's content.

YouTube also drew flak in the past for supposedly encouraging hate speech and violent extremism on the platform, though it addressed the issue by tightening its enforcement policies.

Wojcicki is expected to support Mohan during the transition phase, but over the long term, she will continue to provide insights for Google and Alphabet as an advisor.