On 16th February 2023, YouTube Chief Executive and one of the first Google employees, Susan Wojcicki stepped down from her role at the tech giant.
It was at Susan Wojcicki’s garage, the world’s largest online video platform, started its journey some 25 years ago.
54-year-old Susan Wojcicki will be replaced by her deputy Neal Mohan, a senior advertising and product executive who joined Google in 2008.
The change of guard comes as the video platform’s advertising revenue fell for the second straight quarter amid intense competition from short-form video services such as TikTok, Instagram Reels and Facebook Shorts, and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
In her personal update, Susan Wojcicki said that she would focus on “family, health, and personal projects,” apart from taking up an advisory role at Google’s parent company Alphabet. She previously was the senior vice-president for ad products at Google and in 2014, became the YouTube CEO.
The news, however, didn’t bring any significant change in Alphabet shares, which were down by less than 1% after the news of the leadership change.
“He (Neal Mohan) has a wonderful sense for our product, our business, our creator and user communities, and our employees. Neal will be a terrific leader for YouTube,” Susan Wojcicki said in an internal note to YouTube employees.
Taking to Twitter, Neal Mohan thanked Susan Wojcicki and said, “It’s been amazing to work with you (Susan Wojcicki) over the years. You’ve built YouTube into an extraordinary home for creators and viewers. I’m excited to continue this awesome and important mission. Looking forward to what lies ahead.”
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Who is Neal Mohan?
- A Stanford University graduate, Neal Mohan started his career at Accenture, after completing his studies in 1996
- In 1997, he joined a start-up called Net Gravity and became a key figure there as the company expanded its footprints in the American business landscape
- In 1997, DoubleClick acquired Net Gravity and Neal Mohan moved from California to the internet advertising company’s New York headquarters
Neal Mohan got more involved in DoubleClick’s business affairs, as the company entrusted him to sail through the 2000’s infamous dot-com bubble burst - He became DoubleClick’s vice-president of business operations, before heading back to Stanford in 2003 to pursue his MBA
- DoubleClick started facing issues from its acquisition of Abacus Direct in 1999 and this led to the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman acquiring DoubleClick and splitting off Abacus Direct from the internet advertising company. Hellman & Friedman’s long-time executive
- David Rosenblatt became the new DoubleClick CEO and enlisted Neal Mohan after the latter acquired his MBA
- David Rosenblatt and Neal Mohan oriented DoubleClick towards being a company vested upon advertising exchange, core ad technology situations and an extensive ad network. This transformation plan was outlined in a record 400-slide PowerPoint, which was presented to the DoubleClick board. Hellman & Friedman approved the roadmap in December 2005
- In 2007, Google agreed to acquire DoubleClick for USD 3.1 Billion, which was orchestrated by the then Google executive Susan Wojcicki, who extensively worked with Neal Mohan for the next 15 years. Neal Mohan played a pivotal role in the integration process and joined Google in 2007
- Neal Mohan quickly became a prominent figure in Google’s business operations and when Twitter attempted to hire him as chief product officer, the search engine giant paid the Stanford graduate USD 100 million in bonuses, in order to make him stay
- Not only Twitter, Neal Mohan reportedly got a job offer from Facebook as well. He orchestrated Google’s USD 85 million acquisitions of Invite Media in 2010
- Before moving to YouTube, Neal Mohan was the senior vice-president of display and video ads at Google
- He joined YouTube in 2015 as Chief Product Officer. He oversaw many of the big releases like YouTube Music, YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, and YouTube Shorts. He was also credited for developing a “top-notch product and UX team” within YouTube
- He has also been a prominent figure when it comes to fighting online extremist content. He testified before US Congress and attended a White House summit in September 2022 to announce stricter guidelines against online hate
- Neal Mohan’s illustrious career also saw him working with Microsoft.
- Neal Mohan’s other achievements include sitting on the board of the online personal styling company ‘Stitch Fix’, and genomics and Biotech Company ’23andMe’. He is also a board member of the marketing trade association ‘MMA Global’ and ‘Interactive Advertising Bureau’ (IAB)