YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down; Neal Mohan to take charge

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki will leave the company after a nine-year-old stint, she announced in a blog post. Chief product officer Neal Mohan will take over as new CEO of the world’s largest video platform.
Her association with the company dates back to 1999 when she joined Google as its first marketing manager.
“Today, after nearly 25 years here, I’ve decided to step back from my role as the head of YouTube and start a new chapter focused on my family, health, and personal projects I'm passionate about. The time is right for me, and I feel able to do this because we have an incredible leadership team in place at YouTube. When I joined YouTube nine years ago, one of my first priorities was bringing in an incredible leadership team,” Susan Wojcicki said in the blog post.
Regarding Mohan, Susan remembered that she has spent nearly 15 years of her career working with Neal, first when he came over to Google with the DoubleClick acquisition in 2007 and as his role grew to become SVP of Display and Video Ads.
“He became YouTube’s Chief Product Officer in 2015. Since then, he has set up a top-notch product and UX team, played pivotal roles in the launch of some of our biggest products, including YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium and Shorts, and has led our Trust and Safety team, ensuring that YouTube lives up to its responsibility as a global platform. He has a wonderful sense for our product, our business, our creator and user communities, and our employees. Neal will be a terrific leader for YouTube,” she remembers.
“Twenty-five years ago I made the decision to join a couple of Stanford graduate students who were building a new search engine. Their names were Larry and Sergey. I saw the potential of what they were building, which was incredibly exciting, and although the company had only a few users and no revenue, I decided to join the team. It would be one of the best decisions of my life,” said the blog post.
In the short term, she said she plans to support Neal and help with the transition, which will include continuing to work with some YouTube teams, coaching team members, and meeting with creators.
With all YouTube is doing across Shorts, streaming, and subscriptions, together with the promises of AI, its most exciting opportunities are ahead, and “Neal is the right person to lead us,” she said.
In the longer term, she has agreed with Sundar Pichai to take on an advisory role across Google and Alphabet.
Reminiscing her days at YouTube, she said the over the years, she has worn many hats and done so many things: managed marketing, co-created Google Image Search, led Google’s first Video and Book search, as well as early parts of AdSense’s creation, worked on the YouTube and DoubleClick acquisitions, served as SVP of Ads, and for the last nine years, the CEO of YouTube.
“I took on each challenge that came my way because it had a mission that benefited so many people’s lives around the world: finding information, telling stories and supporting creators, artists, and small businesses. I’m so proud of everything we’ve achieved. It’s been exhilarating, meaningful, and all-consuming,” she wrote.

Challenging times
YouTube is facing one of its most challenging periods since Google bought what was then a quirky video site facing widespread complaints about copyright infringement in 2006 for an announced price of $1.65 billion. By the time the all-stock deal closed, it was valued at $1.76bn.
For nearly a decade, YouTube has been plagued by misinformation and hate speech under Wojcicki's leadership. Because Donald Trump stirred up electoral turmoil in the US in January 2021, YouTube banned him. It is unknown if Wojcicki's resignation will have an impact on the decision to continue suspending the former president from the site.
The rapid ascent of the short-form video network TikTok, which surpassed the Google-owned site in terms of viewing time in late 2022, has caused YouTube more recent problems.