Neal Mohan was Set to Leave, Google Paid $100 Million to Retain Him — All You Need to Know

Back in 2011, Google paid a whopping $100 million to an Indian-American businessman. This was done to restrict him from joining Twitter, now known as X. The revelation came during a recent episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath’s podcast, where he interviewed YouTube CEO Neal Mohan.

In 2011, Neal Mohan was instrumental in positioning Google's advertising and YouTube product strategy. During the podcast, Kamath mentioned, “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,” to which Mohan agreed.

As per a 2011 TechCrunch report, Google offered restricted stock units to Mohan that would go onto vest over several years. It was a part of Google’s measure to stop Mohan from joining Twitter, where his former boss David Rosenblatt joined the board and was keen on recruiting him as Chief Product Officer.

Neal Mohan holds a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He started his professional journey at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) before moving to NetGravity. The startup was later acquired by DoubleClick. Later on, Mohan went on to become the Vice President of Business Operations at the company. In 2007, when Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, Mohan went on to lead Google's ad business.

By 2011, Mohan was instrumental in leading Google's product development strategy, with a growing influence on YouTube's future roadmap. Recognising his value, Google offered Mohan $100 million to retain him.

Similarly, Twitter had also attempted to bring Sundar Pichai onboard. In response, Google offered him a $50 million stock grant to retain him.

Notably, Neal Mohan serves as the CEO of YouTube, succeeding Susan Wojcicki in 2023. On the other hand, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google in 2015 who later assumed the role of Alphabet Inc's CEO in 2019.