Neal Mohan has been appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of YouTube, the world’s all time video sharing platform.
Mohan has been the Chief Product Officer of YouTube since 2015 and during this period directed the launch of YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium and Shorts, as well as led YouTube’s Trust and Safety team.
Indian-American Neal Mohan takes over from Susan Wojcicki who has announced her decision to step down as CEO after nine years for family reasons.
Mohan joined Google nearly 15 years ago as part of the acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007.
Mohan holds an MBA General Management, from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and BSc in Electrical Engineering also from Stanford University. He has previously worked with Accenture and Microsoft.
In a tweet to acknowledge Susan Wojcicki’s departure, Mohan said, “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…”
In her announcement to step aside as YouTube CEO, last Thursday, Susan Wojcicki, said she would be starting a new chapter in her life, focusing on her family, health, and personal projects.
She expressed confidence in the current leadership team at YouTube and stated that the time was right for her to step back. She has been a part of Google since 1999, where she was the 16th employee. In 2014, she became the CEO of YouTube and has played a significant role in shaping the platform into what it is today.
Under her leadership, YouTube grew to become the world’s largest video-sharing platform, with over two billion monthly active users.
YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California, founded by three former PayPal employees – Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim – in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, and has since operated as one of Google’s subsidiaries.
YouTube allows users to upload videos, view them, rate them with likes and dislikes, share them, add videos to playlists, report, make comments on videos, and subscribe to other users. The slogan “Broadcast Yourself” used for several years and the reference to user profiles as “Channels” signifies the premise upon which the platform is based, of allowing anyone to operate a personal broadcasting station in resemblance to television with the extension of video on demand.
The platform offers a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos, short and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers, live streams, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.
In February 2017, there were more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, and one billion hours of content being watched on YouTube every day. By October 2020, YouTube was the second-most popular website in the world, behind Google, according to Alexa Internet.As of May 2019, more than 500 hours of video content were uploaded to YouTube every minute.
Based on reported quarterly advertising revenue, YouTube is estimated to have US$15 billion in annual revenues.
CREDIT: Getty Images, Wikipedia
