Susan Wojcicki Accurately Predicted Today’s Media Landscape—Twice

If you wonder why most of your media time is now spent scrolling through online videos on your phone, look no further than former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, who has passed away at 56 due to cancer.

Eight years ago, she discussed the state of television with Fortune’s Jennifer Reingold, noting that TV viewership was down 40% from its peak. At that time, YouTube was already more popular among 18-34-year-olds than any U.S. TV network.

Wojcicki foresaw a future dominated by individual content creators who could attract audiences on YouTube far larger than traditional primetime TV. This future, she predicted, would be primarily consumed on our phones, not the big flat-screen TVs of our parents.

She essentially predicted the demise of traditional TV: “So TV is probably one of the biggest markets, from ads, from subscriptions, from time spent, and if you look at the next generation—they are completely changing the way they watch TV. They don’t watch the TV as we knew it. They watch … on their mobile phones, in their bedrooms, probably, and it’s completely different.”

According to Wojcicki, individual creators and influencers would replace traditional studios and networks: “They are their own media companies. They are the CEO, they are the personality, and then behind them as they get bigger they have production and editors and writers and so we really have this next generation of media companies.”

Wojcicki had a history of remarkable foresight. In 1998, she rented her garage to two students for $1,700 a month to help cover her mortgage. “I was worried about covering the mortgage, so I was willing to rent my garage to any student,” she told 60 Minutes. “Then two students appeared. One was named Sergey Brin. The other was named Larry Page.”

Those two students were the founders of Google. The company was born in her garage. She joined Google in 1999 as its 16th employee and later became head of Google’s ad business, where she grew its annual revenues from zero to $15 billion by 2013, according to the Financial Times.

Google later bought Wojcicki’s house and garage to preserve it, and you can explore how it looked when Larry and Sergey worked there on Google Maps.

Source: Fortune.com