Her Daughters Were the CEOs of YouTube and 23andMe. She Offers Parents This Simple Advice.

Want to raise the next CEO of a major company? Esther Wojcicki, known as “The Godmother of Silicon Valley,” says it is important for children to go to college, even in the age of AI. 

Wojcicki is the mother of Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, the late Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s former CEO, and Janet Wojcicki, an academic physician-researcher who is a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

On an episode of the podcast Silicon Valley Girl released earlier this month, host Marina Mogilko posed the question, “Do you think parents should be saving or pushing for college in today’s age?” 

Wojcicki immediately responded by saying that college is “so important” because of the interpersonal skills it offers students. 

“People think, ‘Oh, we don’t need college anymore, they can get it all online.’ College is an opportunity for you to hone your interaction with other human beings,” Wojcicki said on the podcast. 

She added that students between the ages of 18 and 22 have “a lot of growing to do” and college offers a way for that growth to occur. 

“If you don’t interact with other people, you aren’t going to get those skills,” Wojcicki said. “So you’re never going to be able to substitute college with an AI education.”

College still matters

Research shows that, even in an AI-disrupted labor market, college graduates continue to have lower unemployment and higher long‑term earnings than those with only a high school diploma.

A 2025 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that workers with only a high school diploma faced unemployment rates at least 2.3% higher than those with Bachelor’s degrees from 2000 to 2025. That gap persisted into the AI era. 

Studies from leading economists similarly conclude that a college education still opens doors to more adaptable, higher-paying jobs, even as AI reshapes the workforce. 

At the same time, the value offered by college is shifting towards “human skills.” McKinsey defines these skills as critical thinking, communication, judgment and collaboration, which are harder to automate and become more important as AI handles routine cognitive tasks. 

A March analysis from Western Governors University of more than 3,000 U.S. employers found that employers increasingly look for human skills over narrow technical skills. 

Wojcicki isn’t the only parent advising the next generation to go to college. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban said last year that college students today have “more resources” available to them than “anybody in the history of everything.” In 2024, he said everyone should have a shot at going to college, even if they don’t end up getting a degree. 

“Going to school isn’t about your major — at least not in the first two years,” he said in a 2024 interview with social media star Jules Terpak. “It’s about learning how to learn, and it’s about getting excited to learn and exposing yourself to all kinds of different people [and] ideas.”

Want to raise the next CEO of a major company? Esther Wojcicki, known as “The Godmother of Silicon Valley,” says it is important for children to go to college, even in the age of AI. 

Wojcicki is the mother of Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, the late Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s former CEO, and Janet Wojcicki, an academic physician-researcher who is a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

On an episode of the podcast Silicon Valley Girl released earlier this month, host Marina Mogilko posed the question, “Do you think parents should be saving or pushing for college in today’s age?”