From Wojcicki to Mohan: A Look at the Future of YouTube Under the New CEO

In light of Susan Wojcicki’s departure as the CEO of YouTube, the future of the company is on everyone’s mind.

In 1999, Susan Wojcicki became the sixteenth employee of Google; the year before, she had a role both as a management consultant at Bain & Company and in the Intel marketing division. While at Google, she has worked on a lot of things, including Google Images, Google Analytics, AdSense, and Google Books.

Susan Wojcicki is widely considered one of the most influential and successful executives in Silicon Valley, having played a key role in the growth and success of Google. Her tenure at the company, spanning over 20 years, has left a profound impact on the company's culture, innovation, and success. Here are some aspects of her legacy at Google:

1. YouTube acquisition: One of Wojcicki's most significant contributions to Google was her recommendation to acquire YouTube, which at the time was an unprofitable, and not particularly large video-sharing website. Wojcicki recognized the potential of the platform early on and convinced Google leadership to acquire the company for $1.65 billion in 2006. Today, YouTube is one of the world's most visited websites, with over 2 billion monthly active users, and is a key revenue driver for Google.

2. Advertising innovation: Wojcicki also led the development of Google's advertising business, which is the company's primary source of revenue. She oversaw the creation of AdSense 2003 (alongside Paul Buchheit and Sergey Brin), a program that allows website owners to monetize their content by displaying relevant ads, and had a leading role in AdWords (Now Google Ads), a program that enables businesses to advertise on Google's search results pages. These advertising innovations have revolutionized the digital advertising industry and have made Google one of the dominant players in the market.

3. Making the company profitable: In 2011, Forbes reported that Susan Wojcicki was responsible for 96% of Google's revenue. AdWords, Google's second advertising program, was launched with 350 advertisers in 2000. While Susan was senior vice president for ad products, Google’s advertising division generated tens of billions in revenue with more than 1 million advertisers on the platform.

Before the purchase of Youtube in 2006, Mark Cuban said,

“Only a moron would buy YouTube.”

Cuban didn’t seem to believe much about what YouTube could do, primarily with user-generated content. In his words,

"User-generated content is not going away, but do you want your advertising dollars spent on a video of Aunt Jenny watching her niece tap dance?"

Today, the current value of this moronic investment for Google is estimated to be more than $180 billion. According to Statista, YouTube is the ninth most valuable media brand worldwide. Susan has helped multiply Youtube and Google’s value while transitioning through different roles.

But today, she is reportedly leaving her position as CEO of Youtube to take on the role of mentor at the same company. Her leaving comes at a time when Youtube is going through a couple of difficulties. The company's quarterly ad income has fallen year over year for the past two quarters due to larger economic issues in the advertising industry. While TikTok's and Meta’s competition also intensifies.

When Susan’s advocacy for the purchase of YouTube was granted, she reportedly said.

“We purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. And the first direction we got was, “Don’t screw it up.”

As Neal Mohan takes over as CEO of Youtube from his recent role as Chief product officer, he is expected to bring Google an estimated $7 billion. According to Insider, he was given a massive $100 million bonus from Google in order to prevent him from accepting a position at Twitter which proves his importance to the company.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has expressed that he believes in Neal's abilities to take the company to the next stage. He said in a statement:

“Susan has built an exceptional team and has in Neal a successor who is ready to hit the ground running and lead YouTube through its next decade of success.”

A hint into what might drive this success for the next decade as Pichai said can be found in Wojcicki's written statement,

With all we’re doing across Shorts, streaming and subscriptions, together with the promises of AI, YouTube’s most exciting opportunities are ahead, and Neal is the right person to lead us.”

Neal is coming from a position where he was responsible for all of Youtube products and content policies to a position where he will now be responsible for ensuring that the business operates at a profit and meets its goals. He has been a key figure in the growth and success of both Google and YouTube and has made several contributions including.

1. Developing and launching Google's programmatic advertising platform: Mohan was instrumental in the development and launch of DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which became Google's programmatic advertising platform. He served as the business's Senior Vice President of Strategy and Product Development.

2. Expanding YouTube's content offerings: Mohan has been involved in efforts to expand the types of content available on YouTube, including the launch of YouTube TV and the expansion of YouTube's music offerings.

3. He is currently overseeing Youtube’s battle with TikTok: Youtube's launching of shorts in 2022 was an effort to compete with TikTok's short-form video format. The feature was made available globally after the product underwent successful testing in India, where it received 3.5 billion views per day after five months. Today, it receives 30 billion views per day.

Neal also advocated for content creators to earn money from their content, assuring them that YouTube would compensate them with a share of the revenue generated by Shorts, according to Google, 45% of the allocated revenue from Shorts will go to the creators. For a quarter in which Alphabet experienced diminishing income in areas like Search, YouTube, and advertising, Shorts' growth was a notable source of hope.

The accomplishments Mohan has made in his recent positions at Youtube shows that the future of the business seems secure under his direction. Addressing Susan, he said,

“Thank you, Susan Wojcicki, It's been amazing to work with you 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.”