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India.com
4 days ago
- Business
- India.com
Google Once Paid $100 Million To Retain This Indian-American Executive – Hint: Not Sundar Pichai
photoDetails english 2908373 Updated:May 30, 2025, 02:58 PM IST Google's $100 Million Bet to Keep Neal Mohan 1 / 7 In 2011, Google made headlines for offering an eye-popping 100 million dollars package to Neal Mohan, an Indian-American executive, to keep him from leaving the company. This massive offer was part of a fierce battle to retain one of their top product strategists, proving how much Google valued his talent and vision. The High-Stakes Talent War with Twitter 2 / 7 According to a 2011 TechCrunch report, Google's Back then, Neal Mohan was about to join Twitter (now X) as Chief Product Officer. Twitter's former board member David Rosenblatt, who had worked with Mohan before, wanted him badly. To stop this, Google offered Mohan 100 million dollars in restricted stock units, vesting over several years, to persuade him to stay. Meet Neal Mohan – The Rising Star 3 / 7 Neal Mohan is a Stanford electrical engineering graduate who started his career at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). He later joined NetGravity, a startup that was acquired by DoubleClick. At DoubleClick, Mohan quickly rose to become Vice President of Business Operations, showing strong leadership in digital advertising. Mohan's Key Role at Google After Acquisition 4 / 7 When Google acquired DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars in 2007, Neal Mohan took on a leadership role within Google's advertising business. By 2011, he was a crucial figure in developing Google's ad products and shaping the future of YouTube's platform, becoming a driving force behind their success. Twitter's Attempt to Woo Sundar Pichai Too 5 / 7 Twitter's talent hunt wasn't limited to Mohan. The company also tried to recruit Sundar Pichai, who was leading Google's Chrome and Chrome OS teams. Google responded by offering Pichai a 50 million dollars stock grant to keep him from moving to Twitter, reflecting the fierce competition for tech leadership at the time. Where Are They Now? 6 / 7 Today, Neal Mohan is the CEO of YouTube, having taken over in 2023 after Susan Wojcicki's departure. Sundar Pichai became Google's CEO in 2015 and later Alphabet's CEO in 2019. Both men remain influential leaders, shaping the future of the tech world. Why Top Talent Is Worth Billions 7 / 7 This story highlights how tech giants like Google go to great lengths, including massive pay packages, to retain talented leaders. Executives like Mohan and Pichai are crucial to driving innovation and maintaining a company's competitive edge in a cutthroat industry.
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Business Standard
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Inside Google's $100 mn gamble to retain YouTube CEO Neal Mohan in 2011
Within Silicon Valley's high-stakes arena, retaining top talent often requires bold moves — and Google's $100 million bet on Neal Mohan is a textbook example. More than a decade ago, the tech giant shelled out a massive stock package to stop Mohan from jumping ship to rival X. The revelation surfaced recently on Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's podcast, where Mohan appeared as a guest. Kamath recalled reading about the extraordinary counteroffer made by Google in 2011. '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,' Kamath said. Mohan did not deny the claim. Inside the $100 million deal At the time, Mohan was a central figure in Google's advertising and YouTube product strategy. Twitter, aiming to strengthen its product leadership, had approached Mohan for the position of Chief Product Officer. The offer was reportedly championed by David Rosenblatt, Mohan's former boss at DoubleClick and a board member at X. Sensing the risk of losing a valuable resource, Google swiftly responded with a counteroffer — restricted stock units worth over $100 million that would vest over several years. The offer was made even before an official one came through from X, according to a 2011 TechCrunch report. The move underscored Mohan's growing influence and the strategic importance Google placed on keeping him. Interestingly, Mohan was not the only Google executive X was eyeing. Sundar Pichai, then leading Chrome and Chrome OS, was also approached. Google responded with a $50 million stock grant to retain him. From startup roots to Silicon Valley leadership Neal Mohan's career trajectory reveals why Google was so determined to keep him. A Stanford University graduate in electrical engineering, Mohan started as a senior analyst at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in 1994. In 1997, he joined NetGravity, which was later acquired by DoubleClick. At DoubleClick, Mohan rose to become vice-president of business operations. He was instrumental in reshaping the company during tough times, and when Google acquired it in 2007 for $3.1 billion, Mohan transitioned into a senior role in Google's ad division. By 2011, he was already shaping YouTube's product roadmap and had become indispensable to Google's product development efforts. The $100 million retention deal turned out to be a prudent investment — his work proved pivotal in shaping YouTube's future. Rise of a quiet tech leader Mohan's impact continued to grow after the failed X move. In 2015, he was appointed Chief Product Officer at YouTube, and by 2023, he had succeeded Susan Wojcicki as CEO of the platform. Despite his low public profile, Mohan remains one of the most influential figures in tech. Beyond his executive role, Mohan is also an Advisory Council Member at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on Nikhil Kamat's 'Google offering you $100 million not to quit' question: 'I wanna see where..."
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan has responded to a report claiming that Google paid him $100 million over a decade ago to prevent him from leaving the company during a 'talent war' in Silicon Valley. The topic came up during a recent episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath 's podcast, where Mohan joined as a guest. Kamath referenced a widely-circulated story from 2011, saying, '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.' Mohan, notably, did not deny the claim but laughingly said, "I wanna see where you're going to take this." What the original report claimed about $100 million offer to Neal Mohan by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Your Finger Shape Says a Lot About Your Personality, Read Now Tips and Tricks Undo At the time, Mohan was playing a key role in shaping Google's advertising strategy and product roadmap for YouTube. According to a 2011 TechCrunch report, the tech giant made the offer in the form of restricted stock units vesting over several years, in a bid to stop him from leaving for Twitter, now known as X. Twitter was reportedly eyeing Mohan for the position of Chief Product Officer, encouraged by his former boss at DoubleClick, David Rosenblatt, who had joined Twitter's board. Mohan, a Stanford-educated electrical engineer, started his career at Andersen Consulting, before moving to NetGravity. After NetGravity was acquired by DoubleClick, he rose through the ranks to become VP of Business Operations. When Google acquired DoubleClick in 2007 for $3.1 billion, Mohan joined Google and eventually became one of the most influential figures in its ad business. The 2011 retention offer seems to have paid off. Mohan continued to climb the ranks and was appointed YouTube CEO in 2023, succeeding Susan Wojcicki . Twitter also tried to hire Google CEO Sundar Pichai Interestingly, Mohan wasn't the only executive Twitter had tried to poach. The company had also reportedly approached Sundar Pichai , then head of Chrome and Chrome OS, around the same time. Google, in response, offered Pichai a $50 million stock grant to keep him onboard. Pichai later became CEO of Google in 2015 and CEO of Alphabet in 2019. This call will steal your money: "Family Scam" working & how to protect yourself! AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
NDTV
6 days ago
- Business
- NDTV
Google Once Paid $100 Million To This Indian-American Man To Retain Him
New Delhi: Google paid an Indian-American businessman a mammoth $100 million over a decade ago to keep him from joining Twitter, now known as X. The revelation came on a recent episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's podcast when the host referenced the high-stakes talent war that once surrounded YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. In 2011, Neal Mohan was a key player in Google's advertising and YouTube product strategy. During the podcast, Mr 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." Mr Mohan did not deny the claim. According to a 2011 TechCrunch report, Google's offer was made in the form of restricted stock units that would vest over several years. It was part of Google's aggressive bid to stop Mr 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, who holds a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, began his career at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) before moving to NetGravity. The startup was acquired by DoubleClick, where Mr Mohan rose through the ranks and eventually became Vice President of Business Operations. When Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2007, Mr Mohan transitioned into a leading role within Google's ad business. By 2011, he was already one of the central figures in Google's product development strategy, with a growing influence on YouTube's future roadmap. Recognising his value, Google made the $100 million offer to retain him, a move that paid off in the long term. Neal Mohan wasn't the only target in Twitter's recruitment drive. Around the same time, Twitter also attempted to lure Sundar Pichai, then heading Chrome and Chrome OS at Google. In response, Google reportedly countered with a $50 million stock grant to retain him. Today, both executives continue to hold influential roles in the tech world. Neal Mohan serves as the CEO of YouTube, succeeding Susan Wojcicki in 2023, while Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google in 2015 and later assumed the role of Alphabet Inc's CEO in 2019.
Forbes
25-05-2025
- Forbes
Google's AI Education Strategy. An Interview With Google Execs
You could feel it in the Mountain View air, something more than the usual Silicon Valley hum. It was Google I/O week, and AI was the phrase on everyone's lips. Education, with its high stakes and profound human impact, felt like it was right in the crosshairs. I had the opportunity to have a conversation with two individuals at the forefront of Google's education initiatives: Byan Lee, the Vice President for ChromeOS and Education, who is actively leading the global push for Education in Chrome, and Shantanu Sinha, the Vice President of Google for Education, who is responsible for overseeing Product and Engineering. I wanted to cut through the noise, to really get how a company at AI's cutting edge is thinking about weaving this tech into the messy, wonderful and incredibly varied world of global education. We kicked things off with what's happening right now. "I feel like at the moment, with artificial intelligence, we are really grasping the linear innovation," I threw out there. "You know, how can this tool whip up a lesson plan or create a resource? We were probably going to do it anyway... but this makes it faster." It's the obvious stuff, the quick wins that lighten a teacher's load and smooth out the daily grind. Shantanu Sinha got it immediately. That first step, he stressed, is huge. "You really do have to ensure that you're as helpful as possible for the people today, right? Like, that's critical," he said. "Helping a teacher do what they're trying to do today , we pride ourselves on building really great tools across Workspace, Classroom, and Chromebooks that help educators... And that's critical to really get adoption." If it's not useful out of the gate, he figured, the bigger changes just won't stick. But for Shantanu, that's just the starting line. He talked about it like a "spectrum." Get people comfortable using AI for the everyday things, and slowly, they start seeing what else it can do. "Once people start using technology, they discover new ways and new things that they can do with it," he told me. He then shared this fantastic story from a pilot in Northern Ireland. Educators there, given AI tools, came up with over 500 different uses in no time. Some were small time-savers, but others were game-changers. That, for me, was it. That's how you get to the exciting, nonlinear stuff. Not by forcing it, but by letting people discover it themselves once they're comfortable. "You really have to unleash the creativity of your end users," Shantanu said, "but they have to be comfortable with the technology first." Bryn Lee then brought in the all-important global view. "There are countries that are vastly in different situations than others," he reminded me. His teams don't just parachute in with tech. They start by figuring out what education ministries, districts, and states are actually trying to achieve. "We really work with... what their goals are, and then trying to map our technology to what their goals are." For some, that's diving deep into AI strategy; for others, it's the basics, like getting kids online. You need that kind of real-world, flexible approach because, let's face it, education looks wildly different from one place to the next. Before you can even dream about AI revolutionizing learning, there's something you absolutely can't skip: trust. We're all hyper-aware of data privacy these days, especially when it comes to kids. For Google, this is ground zero. Bryan was crystal clear: "It is really focusing on the foundation of what sets us apart within Google for Education, which is really how we think about data processing, the security, keeping our students safe, making sure that we've met all the requirements." He talked about Google's commitment to top-notch data controls and making sure Gemini, as a core service, has all those protections baked in. "If you can't get that right in terms of keeping students safe and secure," he put it bluntly, "I think you're going to struggle to unlock all that innovation, because we just don't know what's going to come over the next four or five years." They believe that building this safe, open environment is the only way to get schools on board with AI in a big way. Shantanu explained that AI's own unpredictable nature, what he called its 'jagged edge of the frontier where it's like, 'Really good at this,' and 'It's not good at this,' and it's hard to predict,' makes this trust thing even more vital. "I've never seen a technology that's been created with these types of characteristics," he admitted. One of the big worries with AI in schools is that it'll strip away the human touch. Will AI tutors take over from teachers? Will the art of teaching get boiled down to algorithms? Shantanu offered a firm no. "I think there is a critical role for the classroom experience," he stated. "And that's a big part of what we're sending our kids into school for, to interact with other kids. It's to get mentorship from a teacher, another human being, to really like build these critical skills around problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, being able to unleash their creativity." In a world that's always changing, he argued, these human skills are more important than ever, and the classroom is where they grow. Where AI will shake things up, Shantanu thinks, is in how we share and create content. "All of a sudden, with AI, you have the ability to take any content, transform it into any form factor in some way... You can take a PDF and create an audio podcast in any language. It blows your mind when I say it, but you have to play with it to really see how remarkable that is." This power, he believes, can free up teachers from some of the more repetitive parts of their job. "If a teacher was spending all this time giving worksheets and sitting there grading it... that's because that's what they had to do with the technology of the day," he reflected. If AI can handle things like making quizzes, grading them and giving students some initial help, "that's what's going to elevate the teacher to the next level." The aim, as he put it, is to "empower teachers to really save time on the tasks where they don't want to be spending time and elevate them to spend more time on those other areas." And that, he hopes, "is just going to push more people to ensuring that you're focusing on the human experiences in the classroom." This really hit home for me. From my experience in the classroom, the challenge wasn't a lack of information but fostering curiosity. "Trying to get students curious and motivated about learning was a very, very difficult challenge," I told them. "And I suppose that's what an AI chatbot can't do, really." Shantanu got the complexity. "Motivation is a huge part of what the teacher or what a real tutor really does," he agreed, even sharing a story about his son's piano lessons and how being accountable to a real person made all the difference. That human connection, with all its quirks and nuances, just can't be replaced. That fear of "cognitive laziness" is a real one. If AI can just spit out answers, will students ever learn to wrestle with tough problems themselves? "There's this 'illusion of learning'," Shantanu admitted, "where kids are like, 'Oh, I got the answer, and I think I understood that. So therefore, I learned it.' Like, no." He said it's the teacher's job to shift the focus from just getting the answer to understanding the how and why behind it. "Let's really review drafts. Let's have a conversation about why this was a good essay and this was a bad essay." He used the calculator analogy: "Calculators came out... I don't have to do long multiplication... And I actually never learned how to do square roots... And we didn't need to because at some point, the calculator does it for you." But, crucially, we still teach kids basic math. It's the same idea: you need those foundational skills, even as the tools change. Google's LearnLM model, Bryan jumped in, is built to tackle exactly this. "LearnLM is fundamentally driving more of a personal, engaging, curiosity-type model versus just, 'Here's the answer to something,'" he explained. "How does it guide you down a path over time?" The idea is to get students exploring and thinking for themselves, not just passively receiving information. And Shantanu actually sees AI as something that could spark curiosity. "I think AI can actually help you with it. It can help you think and brainstorm in new ways," he suggested, pointing out that chatbots can be great for brainstorming. By making it easier for anyone to create – to code an app or compose a piece of music with AI's help – it can break down barriers and ignite that creative fire. "When they're into something... you can bring it to life," he said, thinking about how AI can offer new ways to apply what you already know – which is really what creativity is all about. One of the things that excites me most about AI is its power to even the odds. "I really like the fact that AI now allows anybody, pretty much in any socioeconomic status, to do things that are beyond the capability of just one person," I mentioned. Shantanu was right there with me, especially when it came to language. "I go to a place like India where... people aren't good with English... typing things on a US English keyboard is really hard... The fact that now they can speak in their native language and write beautiful English text... Wow, that's amazing what that's enabled us to do now." This drive for equity is why Google's making tools like Gemini and Notebook free for schools everywhere. Bryan Lee didn't sugarcoat the challenges: "Often, what we find... is mainly just, we get hung up on policy and access... And then ultimately, you need some level of connectivity." But he made it clear Google is actively working on it, teaming up with groups like UNESCO to get these tools into more hands. "We are trying to establish further partnerships that can open this up." This also brings up the question of what's "real" work when AI is involved. If AI helps write something, who gets the credit? Both Bryan and Shantanu seemed to think we're all just getting used to a new normal. What really matters, we talked about, is that the idea and the message are genuinely yours, even if AI helped polish the delivery. At the end of the day, AI's success in schools comes down to the teachers. "It seems like the block on some of this might be the actual teacher," I suggested, thinking of schools I've seen that are wary of new tech. Bryan highlighted just how crucial teacher training is. "We're investing deeply into educator training," he stated. "That's really where you're going to see the immediate benefits, both in just making an educator more productive... but also hopefully with retention of teachers." But it's not just about teaching new buttons to click; it's about changing how teachers see AI. "A lot of people still have a view of it as just like a one-way chatbot," Bryan observed. "And so the fear... is like, 'Oh, students are going to use this to find answers.'" Google's plan is to build AI features right into the tools teachers already use, like Google Classroom, so it feels natural. "If we could show up there in a more meaningful way, it'll change the perception of what AI can do for them," he argued. Shantanu put it perfectly: "AI shouldn't be a new technology to learn; that's scary... It should be something that is so easy to integrate into what I'm doing and that is helpful." The planet matters, and the energy AI uses is a real concern for a lot of educators. I brought this up, and both VPs tackled it head-on, tying it into Google's wider green goals. They talked about big investments in making their data centers more efficient, using clean energy like solar and wind, and designing chips that use less power. Bryan also pointed out that ChromeOS devices are pretty energy-efficient themselves, and Google's pushing for longer device lifespans. 10 years of support now. Things like ChromeOS Flex, which lets schools bring old laptops back to life, are part of this too. "One of the best sustainability measures is just not buying new hardware," Bryan said. A down-to-earth point that schools struggling with budgets can appreciate. As a dad I had to ask: what should we be teaching them to get them ready for this AI-driven future? Shantanu's answer was spot on: "They need to have adaptability, they need to have core problem-solving skills, and they're going to need to have an ability to face the unknown... And then, have good values as individuals." He made a crucial point: as AI gives humans more power, "it's really important that we are really like teaching our kids how to be the shepherds of the good for AI." When I pushed them a bit on where this is all going, neither of them went for the doom-and-gloom. Shantanu mused, "Intelligence is an amazing thing... and that's what we're creating with AI... it can solve problems that we struggle with." Bryan used my own Waymo rides as a quick example of how fast we humans get used to new things. My initial slight caution about a driverless car? Gone by the second ride. "I think that's a good example of how quickly you went through that swing," he said. "I just think we're going to adapt really quickly." Walking away from that conversation, I felt like I'd gotten a glimpse into a company that's not just charging ahead with AI in education, but really thinking it through. This isn't about AI for AI's sake. It's about carefully fitting it into the way schools already work, building trust, giving teachers more power, and always remembering that human connection is what makes learning truly special. They get that it's a balancing act. Using AI for the quick wins now, while also nurturing its power to create genuinely new ways of teaching and learning. The road ahead is definitely complicated, and nobody has all the answers. But Google seems set on walking it with a mix of big ideas and a solid sense of responsibility, making sure that even as tech speeds ahead, our human values stay in the driver's seat.
