YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki steps down, leaving Large Tech with no feminine CEOs

Wojcicki is leaving to spend extra time along with her household and give attention to her well being and private tasks, in response to a letter she despatched to staff that was posted on YouTube’s company weblog. She has frolicked prior to now months away from the workplace for well being causes, mentioned an individual who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate the delicate matter. She will likely be changed by Neal Mohan, YouTube’s head of product, who first got here to Google by the corporate’s acquisition of promoting tech platform DoubleClick in 2008.

With Mohan taking up, the CEOs of Twitter, Fb, Snap, Netflix, Disney and YouTube are actually all males.

“It’s at all times such a huge impact when someone who’s a girl at such a high-profile place leaves,” mentioned Sheryl Daija, CEO and founding father of Bridge, a corporation that represents variety, fairness and inclusion leaders. “As we lose ladies leaders, we additionally danger dropping the subsequent technology of ladies. As we lose leaders which might be individuals of coloration, we then danger dropping the subsequent technology of individuals of coloration. So there’s this domino impact.”

Wojcicki’s departure is a significant altering of the guard for Google. It was in Wojcicki’s Silicon Valley storage that Larry Web page and Sergey Brin started constructing the search large. Brin later married her sister, and Wojcicki stayed with the corporate, rising by the ranks and holding plenty of main roles earlier than being appointed head of YouTube in 2014.

Wojcicki was seen by many Google staff as kind of a member of Brin and Web page’s household, given her lengthy relationship with them and standing as one of many firm’s founding staff. Her title was floated by some as a possible future CEO of Google.

As an alternative, many high-profile ladies in tech have stepped down from their roles earlier than turning into CEO. Wojcicki’s departure follows different high-profile feminine leaders who’ve left huge expertise firms. Earlier this week, Meta Chief Enterprise Officer Marne Levine introduced she could be leaving after 13 years on the firm. Final 12 months, Sheryl Sandberg introduced she was stepping down as chief working officer after a 14-year stint on the social media large.

These departures depart the ranks of ladies within the c-suite of main tech firms even thinner. Deborah Liu, a former Fb government, is the CEO of Ancestry.com, whereas Safra Catz is the CEO of software program firm Oracle.

The current spate of job cuts within the tech sector has jeopardized the progress many main firms made in diversifying their workforces through the pandemic with the lure of distant work. Silicon Valley layoffs have hit ladies significantly arduous, as a result of they had been newer to their jobs and occupied roles that firms had been much less fascinated by retaining, in response to specialists.

Attrition charges for individuals who work in roles selling variety, fairness and inclusion have outpaced different roles at greater than 600 U.S. firms that laid off staff since late 2020 — a disparity that grew worse prior to now six months, in response to knowledge from Revelio Labs, an organization that analyzes developments within the labor market.

“The [economic] uncertainty will imply staff who’re already not fairly your stereotypical tech bro is perhaps extra in jeopardy,” mentioned Reyhan Ayas, a senior economist at Revelio Labs.

Wojcicki oversaw super development, taking YouTube from round a billion customers a couple of decade in the past to the over 2 billion individuals who use it month-to-month at present. She additionally oversaw the growth of YouTube’s Creator program and helped spearhead efforts to assist creators monetize their work. Throughout her tenure, YouTube was one in all Google’s most vital income development drivers, going from $3.6 billion in income within the fourth quarter of 2018, when the corporate first broke out YouTube’s monetary numbers, to just about $8 billion within the fourth quarter of 2022. Wall Road analysts typically identified, nonetheless, that YouTube’s income per person was considerably decrease than such opponents as Fb.

Over time, Wojcicki additionally confronted scrutiny over how YouTube dealt with problematic content material. Throughout her tenure, activists and regulators all over the world criticized the corporate for permitting hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Even earlier than the pandemic, anti-vaccine influencers had grown well-liked on the platform, and the location had change into a key a part of the ecosystem of vaccine skeptics that exploded when the coronavirus started spreading.

The corporate has additionally confronted the ire of civil rights teams and lawmakers over its lack of transparency about how the platform fights misinformation in languages aside from English and the unfold of election-misinformation on its social community. Final 12 months, Wojcicki promised members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in a non-public assembly to supply extra knowledge about how misinformation in Spanish is moderated on the video-sharing community, in response to the lawmakers.

“We’ve tried to interact with YouTube for years, in makes an attempt to higher perceive how the platform moderates content material and whether or not it applies its guidelines equitably throughout the globe and throughout languages,” Nora Benavidez, a senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at media and expertise advocacy group Free Press, mentioned in an announcement. “The transition of management is a essential second for YouTube to step up its sport to prioritize engagement with the civil and human rights subject.”

Wojcicki additionally made the choice, together with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, to ban Donald Trump from YouTube after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. When Fb mentioned earlier this 12 months that it could rescind its ban on Trump, the main target swung as to if YouTube would do the identical. YouTube’s ban stays, for now.

Taylor Lorenz contributed to this report.