YouTube CEO Neal Mohan Confirms Google Paid Him $100 Million To Stop Him From Joining This Company
The revelation was made on a recent episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's podcast.
Google and X (formerly Twitter) have long been involved in a high-stakes battle when it comes to attracting the best talent. But few might know that Google once paid an Indian-American entrepreneur $100 million over 10 years ago to keep him from joining their rival. The revelation was made on a recent episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's podcast.
Kamath detailed the extent to which Google had gone to retain Neal Mohan, who is now the CEO of YouTube.
Neal Mohan was the guest on the latest episode of Kamath’s podcast when the topic came up for discussion. During the episode, the Zerodha co-founder said, "I remember reading this thing about Google offering you $100 million not to quit. Not today, but 15 years ago, which was a lot of money." Neal Mohan did not deny the claim.
In 2011, Neal Mohan was at the centre of a tug of war between Google and Twitter. Mohan’s former boss, David Rosenblatt, had joined Twitter and was keen to recruit him as Chief Product Officer. Google reportedly offered Mohan $100 million in stock grants that would vest over several years, as per a 2011 Tech Crunch report. Surprisingly, the company made the counteroffer to Mohan even before an official offer from Twitter.
The microblogging platform had also set its sights on present Google chief Sundar Pichai, who was then heading Chrome OS and Chrome at the company. The tech giant reportedly gave a $50 million stock grant to Pichai to retain him.
Who Is Neal Mohan?
A graduate of Stanford University, Neal Mohan is one of the big names in the tech world. The YouTube CEO began his career in 1994 as a Senior Analyst at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). He moved to NetGravity in 1997. The startup was later acquired by DoubleClick.
At DoubleClick, Neal Mohan eventually became Vice President of Business Operations. In 2007, Google acquired the firm for $3.1 billion, and Mohan moved to a leadership position in the company. He was one of the big names in Google's product development strategy by 2011, which is the reason Twitter wanted to hire him.
The $100 million counteroffer proved to be a gambit that paid off in their favour. Neal Mohan remained with the company and his contributions were pivotal for the development of YouTube. In 2015, Mohan was picked to be the Chief Product Officer of YouTube. In 2023, he was appointed the CEO of the video sharing platform.
Mohan is also an Advisory Council Member at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business as well as a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.
