The demise of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on Friday highlighted her key function in one among Silicon Valley’s most legendary origin tales.
When Larry Web page and Sergey Brin began Google in 1998, they rented out Wojcicki’s Palo Alto storage to make use of as a “worldwide headquarters.”
Throughout a 2014 graduation speech at Johns Hopkins College, she described the circumstances that led to the fateful determination. She mentioned she was newly married and simply purchased the home, however might barely afford the mortgage. A mutual good friend related her with Web page and Brin, who have been nonetheless Stanford graduate college students on the time.
“They seemed nice,” Wojcicki mentioned. “Their idea sounded kind of crazy.”
Whereas the identify of their new firm struck her as odd and he or she wasn’t positive what it meant, none of that mattered on the time.
“As long as you guys pay your rent on time, you guys can build your Googly thing here,” she recalled telling them.
Ultimately, she joined them in late-night periods of consuming pizza and M&Ms, she added, with the Google cofounders speaking about how their expertise might change the world—and the way excited they have been that the storage had a washer and dryer.
In line with Google, the corporate expanded its workspaces into the three small bedrooms on the bottom flooring because the employees grew to 6 individuals.
In 2018, to mark the twentieth anniversary of Google’s founding, the corporate used archival footage to recreate what the storage seemed like again in 1998.
The Road View crew then posted pictures of every room, permitting viewers to just about discover the startup’s authentic workplace house in all its cluttered glory.
The workplace additionally featured a piano keyboard for music breaks and a requisite ping pong desk, although pictures present it was folded up and stashed in a nook.
In a 2018 video accompanying the recreated workplace, Wojcicki mentioned, “Wow, it’s amazing to see it looks the same. It’s like going back in time.”
Google additionally posted an authentic grainy video of the storage that was shot by the corporate’s sixth worker, engineer Harry Cheung, who has since moved on to develop into an angel investor.
After touring the rooms along with his digicam, he noticed Web page exhausting at work in entrance of a pc.
