Mohan was born in Lafayette, Indiana.[2] He spent most of his childhood growing up in the United States before moving to India with his family in 1985.[5] In 1992, he moved back to the U.S. and attended Stanford University. He majored in electrical engineering and graduated in 1996.[6] Mohan started working at Accenture, before joining a startup called NetGravity. He swiftly became a prominent figure within the company.
After returning to Stanford in 2003 to pursue his MBA, NetGravity's parent company, DoubleClick, which had acquired the company in 1997, began to undergo serious issues stemming from another 1999 acquisition of Abacus Direct; this ultimately led to the merger being effectively annulled. Mohan was enlisted by David Rosenblatt, who had become DoubleClick's new CEO in the wake of the split, to work at the company in 2005. Together, they reoriented the company, devising a plan said to still have an influence on Google's operations.
DoubleClick was acquired by Google in 2007, an acquisition largely oriented by Google executive Susan Wojcicki. She and Mohan extensively worked together for the next fifteen years. In 2015, Mohan became CPO of YouTube, which Wojcicki headed as CEO. Throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s, he spearheaded much of the company's ventures, such as YouTube TV, YouTube Music, YouTube Premium, and YouTube Shorts. Upon Wojcicki's resignation in February 2023, he succeeded her as CEO of YouTube.
After graduation, Mohan worked at Accenture, then owned by Arthur Andersen. In 1997, he joined a startup called NetGravity, becoming a key figure in the company's operations and greatly expanding its prominence.[14]
DoubleClick
In 1997, NetGravity was acquired by DoubleClick. Mohan moved from California to the company's headquarters in New York. In the next several years, he gradually became more involved in central business affairs within the company, with DoubleClick relying on him for cutting costs in the wake of the burst of the dot-com bubble. He became the vice president of business operations.[14]
In 2003, he returned to Stanford to pursue his MBA. While he was at Stanford, DoubleClick began to face serious issues stemming from its acquisition from Abacus Direct in 1999. The merger was de facto annulled by Hellman & Friedman, who acquired DoubleClick and split off Abacus Direct from it. Hellman & Friedman requested that longtime executive David Rosenblatt become CEO of DoubleClick in the wake of the company's partition. Rosenblatt accepted this offer and also enlisted Mohan after he acquired his MBA in 2005, under Mohan's conditions that he would stay in California.[14]
Together, Rosenblatt and Mohan devised a plan to orient DoubleClick towards being a company vested upon advertising exchange, core ad technology situations, and an extensive ad network. This plan was outlined in a 400-slide PowerPoint presentation, said by those who created or have seen it to still have influence on current business plans by Google. The plan was presented to the board of DoubleClick and Hellman & Friedman in December 2005, who approved it.[14]
Google
Mohan at the 2013 Tech Crunch Disrupt conference
On April 13, 2007, Google agreed to acquire DoubleClick for US$3.1 billion. Google executive Susan Wojcicki largely orchestrated this action. For the next 15 years, she worked extensively with Mohan, who formally joined Google in 2007, playing a key role in the integration process with DoubleClick.[15][16] While at Google, Mohan managed the company's 2010 US$85 million acquisition of Invite Media. Before moving to YouTube, he was senior vice president of display and video ads at Google.[16]
In 2011, Rosenblatt, who was now a board member of Twitter, attempted to hire Mohan as chief product officer. Though Mohan nearly accepted, Google paid him US$100 million to remain at the company. A former Facebook senior executive also stated that he attempted to hire Mohan while he was at Google.[14]
Mohan joined YouTube (a Google subsidiary) in 2015 as Chief Product Officer.[17][3] During his time at the company, he managed a number of its marquees throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s, including YouTube Music, YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, and YouTube Shorts.[18][19] Following September 2020, Mohan appeared before Congress and participated in a White House summit, during which he introduced a new content moderation policy for YouTube aimed at addressing violent extremist content on the platform. This policy expanded upon previous ones targeting groups such as ISIS, by prohibiting content that glorified violence or sought to recruit or fundraise for extremist organizations, regardless of whether the content was directly associated with a designated terrorist group. Concurrently, YouTube initiated a media literacy campaign to assist viewers, particularly younger ones, in recognizing manipulation techniques employed in the dissemination of misinformation.[16]
On February 16, 2023, Mohan was selected to succeed Susan Wojcicki as YouTube's CEO.[13]
Mohan is married to Hema Sareen Mohan, who has worked in the non-profit and public welfare sectors for two decades.[20] He married his wife while in New York during his time working for DoubleClick.[14]
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