Sherwood News

Susan Wojcicki helped build YouTube into a billion-dollar advertising behemoth

8/12/24 9:50AM

Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube, employee number 16 at Google, and one-time landlord for the tech company’s founders in the late 90s, died at 56 after living with lung cancer for 2 years, according to a Facebook post from her husband on Friday.

Current Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai paid tribute in a memo to employees, highlighting Wojcicki’s role in building the Google ad business, her work leading YouTube, and her parental leave advocacy (Wojcicki was the first Googler to take maternity leave) which “set a new standard for businesses everywhere”.

Platform pioneer

Wojcicki has been credited with convincing the Google board to stump up the $1.65 billion for YouTube in 2006, as Google Video, the unit she oversaw at the time, struggled to compete.

8 years later, she was made CEO of the video-sharing platform, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that YouTube made about $4 billion in the year that Wojcicki took the helm. Per Alphabet’s latest annual report for 2023 — the year that Wojcicki resigned to focus on her family, health, and personal projects — adverts made the company $31.5 billion. That figure was up ~690% since 2014 and accounted for more than 10% of Alphabet’s overall revenue for the year.

Tom Jones

closing out

Diageo is considering selling parts of its struggling China business

The Guinness and Johnnie Walker giant has its work cut out in the nation, where drinking has sunk since 2015.

Max Knoblauch1/12/26

Paramount sues Warner Bros. for more info on its deal with Netflix, says it plans to nominate new directors

It’s a fresh week and that means a fresh bit of escalation in the ongoing Warner Bros. Discovery merger drama.

At an upcoming meeting, Paramount Skydance plans to “nominate a slate of [WBD] directors who, in accordance with their fiduciary duties, will... enter into a transaction with Paramount,” CEO David Ellison wrote in a letter to WBD shareholders disclosed on Monday.

Ellison also said that Paramount sued WBD in Delaware court in an effort to force the board to disclose “basic information” that will allow shareholders to make an informed decision between Paramount’s offer and one from Netflix. WBD shares dipped about 2% on Monday morning.

The latest update follows Paramount’s move last week to reaffirm — but not raise — its $30-per-share offer for WBD. Some saw that decision as Paramount effectively throwing in the towel on its merger hopes, given that the same deal has been rejected twice by the WBD board and winning over shareholders directly is a difficult process. Monday’s disclosure appears to signal that whether it loses or not, Paramount isn’t going to make Netflix’s acquisition easy.

Hyunsoo Rim

one battle after another

1/12/26

Saks Global nears bankruptcy as department stores lose ground in America

On top of its debt-laden luxury merger, the retailer’s operating in a sector that’s been in retreat for over 20 years.