YouTube's former CEO and long-time Google executive Susan Wojcicki has died after a two-year battle with lung cancer.

Ms Wojcicki's husband, Dennis Troper, confirmed her passing in a social media post on Saturday.

"It is with profound sadness that I share the news of Susan Wojcicki passing. My beloved wife of 26 years and mother to our five children left us today after two years of living with non-small cell lung cancer," he wrote on Facebook.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai paid tribute to his former colleague and her work ethic during the cancer battle. 

"Over the last two years, even as she dealt with great personal difficulties, Susan devoted herself to making the world better through her philanthropy, including supporting research for the disease that ultimately took her life," he said in a note to employees.

One of the most prominent women in tech, Ms Wojcicki joined Google in 1999 to become one of the first few employees of the web search leader, years before it acquired YouTube in 2006.

She played a key role in the early development of the search engine alongside Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Before becoming CEO of YouTube in 2014, she was the senior vice-president for ad products at Google.

After nine years at the helm, Ms Wojcicki stepped down from her role at YouTube in 2023 to focus on "family, health, and personal projects". 

She was replaced by her deputy, Neal Mohan, a senior advertising and product executive who joined Google in 2008. 

"Today we at YouTube lost a teammate, mentor, and friend, Susan Wojcicki," Mr Mohan said in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

Reuters