Susan Wojcicki

Renting out her garage led to one of the biggest tech deals in history.

In 1998, Susan Wojcicki wasn’t trying to change the internet.

She was just trying to cover her mortgage.

So she rented out her garage to two Stanford PhD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Their project? A little startup called Google.

A year later, Susan became Google’s 16th employee.

She built AdSense, led Google’s early advertising empire, and helped design the first Google Doodles.

But her biggest move came in 2006.

YouTube was a scrappy video startup.

Google had its own failing version, Google Video.

While others saw a competitor, Susan saw an opportunity.

She convinced Google to buy YouTube for $1.65B.

A decision that shaped the future of digital media.

As YouTube’s CEO from 2014 to 2023, she transformed it into a global giant: 2B+ monthly users, 1B+ hours watched daily, and $30B paid to creators.

She championed monetization, launched YouTube Shorts, and expanded the platform into gaming, music, and education.