The death of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on Friday highlighted her key role in one of Silicon Valley’s most legendary origin stories.
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google in 1998, they rented out Wojcicki’s Palo Alto garage to use as a “worldwide headquarters.”
During a 2014 commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University, she described the circumstances that led to the fateful decision. She said she was newly married and just bought the house, but could barely afford the mortgage. A mutual friend connected her with Page and Brin, who were still Stanford graduate students at the time.
“They seemed nice,” Wojcicki said. “Their idea sounded kind of crazy.”
While the name of their new company struck her as odd and she wasn’t sure what it meant, none of that mattered at the time.
“As long as you guys pay your rent on time, you guys can build your Googly thing here,” she recalled telling them.
Eventually, she joined them in late-night sessions of eating pizza and M&Ms, she added, with the Google cofounders talking about how their technology could change the world—and how excited they were that the garage had a washer and dryer.
According to Google, the company expanded its workspaces into the three small bedrooms on the ground floor as the staff grew to six people.
In 2018, to mark the 20th anniversary of Google’s founding, the company used archival footage to recreate what the garage looked like back in 1998.
The Street View team then posted images of each room, allowing viewers to virtually explore the startup’s original office space in all its cluttered glory.
The office also featured a piano keyboard for music breaks and a requisite ping pong table, though images show it was folded up and stashed in a corner.
In a 2018 video accompanying the recreated office, Wojcicki said, “Wow, it’s amazing to see it looks the same. It’s like going back in time.”
Google also posted an original grainy video of the garage that was shot by the company’s sixth employee, engineer Harry Cheung, who has since moved on to become an angel investor.
After touring the rooms with his camera, he spotted Page hard at work in front of a computer.
Read more about Susan Wojcicki:
- Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has died at 56
- Susan Wojcicki perfectly predicted the media world we now live in—twice
- Susan Wojcicki on how she built YouTube as the new TV
- Susan Wojcicki was the most level-headed of her sisters while growing up, mother recalled in earlier talk about how to raise successful kids
- Susan Wojcicki offered management lessons from the Titanic and ‘Frozen’ in a 2014 commencement speech