Former YouTube product officer on money struggles during early days: ‘Google had a cash pile over there, but I had to…'
Even with Google's resources, he said the internal funding process was restrictive. 'Everybody around you can say no, and only one person can say yes,' he said, referring to Google CEO Sundar Pichai as the sole decision-maker for major investments.
He contrasted this with OpenAI's funding approach. "If you're Sam Altman, everybody can say yes and nobody can say no," Mehrotra said. "He can just keep hunting for whoever can give him money."
When YouTube paid dividend to Google
Mehrotra, who joined the video streaming platform in 2008, turned it profitable within two years. But YouTube kept only 75% of its earnings. 'Every dollar we made, 25 cents went to corporate and 75 cents we could spend,' he recalled. 'I effectively had a dividend to Google.'
During his tenure at YouTube, Shishir Mehrotra helped launch YouTube features such as skippable ads. He left YouTube in 2014 and is now CEO of Grammarly. He joined the company in January after Grammarly acquired Coda, owned by Mehrotra. Since then, Grammarly has raised $1 billion from General Catalyst. Unlike YouTube, Grammarly does not have a corporate parent. "YouTube didn't have 'infinite money,'' Mehrotra said.
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