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My late friend Susan Wojcicki wrote an essay before she passed that was just published posthumously. It is a) extraordinary and b) VERY Susan. I share it with you in full without reservations below:
From Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube:
In 2022, our former CEO Susan Wojcicki learned she had lung cancer. For two years, she fought cancer the same way she lived the rest of her life — with hope, a curiosity to learn, and a determination to scale research efforts that could save lives.
Through Susan, I learned that lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death in women. She wanted to change those odds.
Susan wrote a post in the final weeks of her lifethat she planned to publish this fall.
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and we’re taking this opportunity to carry on Susan’s mission to help others by publishing her blog. You can read her thoughts below, and learn more about lung cancer at Stand Up To Cancer.
At the end of 2022, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I had almost no symptoms and was running a few miles a day at the time. I had never smoked so I was totally shocked with this diagnosis.
My life changed dramatically after that day. I decided to resign from my role as CEO of YouTube, to focus on my health and my family. I was able to live an almost normal life, thanks to modern medicine. I continued to serve on boards: Salesforce, Planet Labs and Waymo, as well as on nonprofit boards like Room to Read and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). But most of my time shifted to focus on cancer research.
Before my diagnosis, my husband and I had already been actively supporting cancer research and new technologies like genetic sequencing and data science, with the hope of shedding light on new cures. After my diagnosis, we stepped up our efforts as we quickly learned lung cancer was under researched and misunderstood. We have since given millions of dollars to support early detection research, new immunotherapy options that could cure cancer, building a community of genotyped patients to better understand the disease, and fundamental research to better understand the mechanisms and science behind the cancers.
I plan to continue to spend my time and resources investing in future cures for cancer. Especially lung cancer.
It is not well known that lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death in womenand the second most common cancer in women. Although lung cancer overall is decreasing because of declines in tobacco use, lung cancer among people who have never smoked has been rising significantly, and two-thirds of people diagnosed lung cancer with no smoking history are women.
Despite lung cancer being the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S., it’s significantly underfunded. Lung cancer receives $4,438 per death in NIH research funding, whereas breast cancer receives $19,869, prostate $9,135, colorectal $7,565, and pancreatic $5,932 (source). I plan to raise awareness and fight for more resources for lung cancer patients overall.
Having cancer hasn’t been easy. As a person I have changed a lot, and probably the most important lesson I have learned is just to focus and enjoy the present! Life is unpredictable for everyone, with many unknowns, but there is a lot of beauty in everyday life. My goals going forward are to enjoy the present as much as possible and fight for better understanding and cures for this disease.
Dec 6, 2024
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I watched my brother die of cancer at 22 when I was twelve, as well as my uncle of brain cancer and a few other members of my family. I then had a similar type of rare sarcoma cancer that my brother did when i was 20, and I was just talking to friends about this last night!
I think the most powerful thing we can do as humans is understand our mortality. Once we understand that we're just meat sacks with no universal truth beside death, we can exist in a manner that aligns with meaningful connection.
I advise you tell people things you need to tell them, whether you love them or you think something they're doing is not serving them.
Be justified and trusting in all your decisions for yourself because you have to now.
I'm so sorry this is coming as a shock to you so suddenly. this is hard shit to reckon with at first. But just like my brother said while being interviewed on CNN during our MLB ballpark tour raising awareness in '06:
"I live every day like I'm dying"
Jul 25, 2024
It’s been a little over two weeks since David Lynch’s passing and my partner and I are almost halfway through the second season of Twin Peaks (the notable ninth episode to be exact). It’s hard not to see thematic similarities between it and what’s going on in the world.
For those unfamiliar with the show, underneath the cliches of a 90s whodunnit TV drama, a lot of it deals with ideas of where evil comes from, where it resides within humanity, and how we are to grapple with it, especially in a modernized world. How do we bring it to justice? How do we fight back against the seemingly inescapable dark forces that surrounds us? Both the show and Lynch are infamous for leaving a lot of these questions shrouded in mystery though it does make one thing abundantly clear — we can’t do it on our own.
The show actually takes great lengths in showing the audience just how important it is to have good community and communication within that and how detrimental it can be when we don’t.
It can be easy for us to forget that just because we are all connected via the vast landscape of the internet that we don’t inherently share communion with one another without intentionality. In fact, I’ve been finding myself guilty of this quite often. Doomscrolling through my friends and family’s posts, reacting mindlessly without intention to go deeper — asking how they’re doing and what’s been going on in their world. We often take the face value of what people post and leave it at that and that is where I find myself failing the most.
The feelings of dread and despair can creep up on us so easily when we aren’t putting forth the work to seek community with one another, when we face our demons alone. As the adage goes: misery loves company. In that same vein: joy thrives in camaraderie!
How can we feel miserable when we’re in fellowship with people who genuinely care about us?
Everything can seem so big and scary when we are on our own but in the companionship of others, there isn’t anything we can’t overcome together.
There is a line in that particular episode spoken by the series protagonist Agent Dale Cooper in response to another character who argues whether it really matters or not what evil’s true nature is to which he responds: “Yes, because it’s our job to fight it”.
Whatever your personal belief is, whether it be based in any spirituality or science, we know that evil is out there. Call by any name you’d like: the darkness, the evil that men do, wickedness — none of us can deny its existence. The world very much is in a state of disarray and uncertainty, something a lot of us can’t help but feel overwhelmed by. Myself included. Yet the comfort I’ve been seeking has been in my friends; the community I’ve built for myself not just in Los Angeles, but back in Texas as with everywhere else in the world where I have made friends.
The only way out is through, there is no running away or hiding from the realities of what is happening and what will continue to happen in the future. But we don’t have to do it alone. That is probably the greatest disservice we can do in times like these, convincing ourselves that we have no one. Lynch knew this then, when he was writing this wacky show. Nobody can survive the horrors of this world alone.
Wherever you are, whether we’ve spoken yesterday or in years, I hope you know you have a friend in me. Reach out to others, stay connected in any ways that you can within your own limits. Just don’t keep at it alone. We’re all we’ve got and the light that derives from that is far stronger than anything the darkness can throw at us.
I love you all and stay safe out there.
Feb 6, 2025
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My cousin died a few months ago and him passing was the first time I realized that life is so unpredictable and weird. I had just saw him for the first time in 6 years during christmas time. He was him, the same funny smart ass that made everyone in the room laugh. He talked about how he loved nature at length, We talked about heading up north and camping because he has never been to Northern California and I knew he would love it up there. I say all this to say that I never thought I would have to see my cousin pass before me. I thought we would get old, have some kids and see each other every few years and just laugh about how crazy we were as kids. I’m just so happy I had those 3 hours with him, seeing him go on and on about how he loved nature, watching him have hope for the future, loving life to the fullest. When I struggle to get through the minor inconveniences of life, I think about my cousins smile as he talked about nature. I think about how you should just love being alive and take it all in. How lucky I am to be one in a million. Life is very very strange, but bruh is it not beautiful.
Jun 18, 2024
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Hey tyler hopefully this doesn’t violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s.
Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha).
For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I can’t wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! ❤️
Mar 27, 2024
“Songs Of a Lost World” coming to a goth listening station near you Nov 1 🖤
The fr FW Me Friday the 13th the world was looking for
Sep 14, 2024
I will fail to explain just how much this band meant to me in the 90s.
So I will borrow from AV Club who did a fine job of distilling it:
“Unwound is the best band of the ’90s. Not just because of how prolific, consistent, and uncompromising it was, but because of how perfectly Unwound nested in a unique space between some of the most vital forms of music that decade: punk, post-rock, indie rock, post-hardcore, slow-core, and experimental noise. That jumble of subgenres doesn’t say much; in fact, it falls far short of what Unwound truly synthesized and stood for. Unwound stood for Unwound. But in a decade where most bands were either stridently earnest or stridently ironic, Unwound wasn’t stridently anything. It was only itself. In one sense Unwound was the quietest band of the ’90s, skulking around like a nerdy terror cell. In another sense it was the loudest, sculpting raw noise into contorted visions of inner turmoil and frustration.”
R.I.P. Vern Rumsey.
This is their finest song, from their finest album.
I really can’t say enough about the sheer bloody minded genius of this group. 🖤
Mar 23, 2024