YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Is Resigning

This is a big moment for YouTube. It's a big moment that some people have been expecting for a while. I'd say that the pickup succession has surprised no one who's been tracking YouTube and Google. Neil Mohan has been at YouTube in the role of Chief Product Officer. Since 2015, his role has expanded in those eight years. He actually worked with Susan Wojcicki before that on Google Ads. So he's a known entity, certainly for advertisers and a little bit more so for YouTube creators.

Is Susan leaving YouTube at a time where they're pressured and challenged, or is she leaving them in sort of robust, rude health? Let's say both. I think part of Susan's legacy, certainly on the business side, has been taking this asset. In 2014, when she joined YouTube, was this huge commercial success, or rather huge pop culture success, but it had never really proven itself to be profitable. They've gone through a series of crises around the business side, but in the past five years, ads business at least, from what they disclose, has more than tripled. And there's moving into TV streaming. They've struggled a little bit on competing with Spotify, but their big threats now are TikTok, which is clearly a much bigger existential threat. And then just the larger threats that Google has on the regulatory side.

That's very unclear about YouTube's future. So some saw this coming. This is what Susan herself had to say in a blog post that was published on Thursday morning about why. The time is right for me. I feel able to do this because we have an incredible leadership team, clearly a reference as well to Neil, who's going to take the reins. What do we know about him? Him as a leader, as an operator. He's incredibly googly.

I mean that in the sense that he's been there since 2008. People talk to me about this. This actually does have some value in the sense that Google is a very political place. And in order to get things done, YouTube is a division that has to fight for resources with Google Cloud, with Pixel. And certainly having someone who's been so experienced with the company is an asset. He's not a media executive. He never worked in media before.

On programming, they had Robert Kinsel, who was their Hollywood chief, who left earlier this year. And I think that was his replacement, was another person who worked on Google Ads. And I think it's a clear indication here, YouTube has dropped their strategy to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime. They're all in on becoming just the premier ad-based destination and competing with TikTok. Before we let you go, what did you reflect on in your book about Susan? What did you learn about her as you went about writing? Susan's a bit of a safer. Unlike, say, Cheryl Sandberg, she has not built a public profile. Most people out in the street don't know who she is.

I think that's been advantageous to YouTube. In some ways, they've been able to avoid some of the scrutiny that Facebook has. I think what will be really interesting going forward is she is described by people who work at Google as one of the very few humans on the planet that has a relationship with Google founders. As we know, they have left the company but are still the majority shareholders. And now, as Google is having this big existential moment around AI, she's an important person there. And she's clearly still consulting, but her absence will, I think, will be felt.

Bloomberg