Susan Wojcicki Steps Down As YouTube CEO With Neal Mohan Set To Take Over

Key takeaways

• Susan Wojcicki is stepping down as the CEO of YouTube, naming Neal Mohan, YouTube’s current chief product officer, as her successor
• Under Wojcicki’s leadership, YouTube roughly doubled its number of average daily users
• With developments in AI and a Supreme Court case set to take place this year, Alphabet is going through a period of significant change

In an article shared on the YouTube Official Blog, Susan Wojcicki announced that she would be stepping down as CEO. Wojcicki served as the CEO for the last nine years and worked at parent company Google for 25. Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, will replace her.

We’ll discuss changes at YouTube throughout Wojcicki’s tenure as CEO, plus look at the company’s recent financial performance and what shareholders should know moving forward. If you’re interested in investing in tech companies like Alphabet, consider downloading Q.ai.

Susan Wojcicki steps down

On February 16, Susan Wojcicki announced she’d be stepping down as YouTube’s CEO. This marked the end of 25 years for Wojcicki at YouTube’s parent company, Google. During that time, she co-created Google Image Search, led Google’s first Video and Book search and helped create AdSense.

Wojcicki also wrote to employees that working at the company had felt “exhilarating, meaningful and all-consuming.” Though Wojcicki plans to keep an advisory role across Google and Alphabet, she shared that she’ll be stepping back to focus on her personal life, health and other projects.

Wojcicki was Big Tech’s only female CEO, making her departure bittersweet to many. She leaves a mixed legacy with YouTube content creators, many of whom were frustrated by her support for removing dislike buttons from YouTube. Other creators took issue with YouTube’s automated flagging and demonetization policies under her leadership, including many LGBT creators who accused YouTube’s machine-learning technology of bias.

At the same time, Wojcicki took significant steps to combat disinformation on YouTube and helped grow the platform extensively. The number of daily users has approximately doubled since Wojcicki took the helm at YouTube, and new offerings like a music streaming service and YouTube TV have increased its range of content.

Neal Mohan prepares to take the reigns

Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer since 2015, will take over for Wojcicki as CEO. Wojcicki said in her message to employees that she’d worked with Mohan for 15 years, “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.”

Since joining YouTube’s team, many have credited Mohan with helping launch exciting products like YouTube Premium and Shorts. Wojcicki also credits Mohan with leading YouTube’s Trust and Safety team, “ensuring that YouTube lives up to its responsibility as a global platform.”

Mohan is a strong choice for a successor, especially considering his role in making YouTube Shorts competitive with recent challenger TikTok. Wojcicki plans to support Mohan throughout the transition.

Alphabet (GOOGL) financials

Alphabet announced its fourth-quarter earnings earlier this month, reporting a miss on both top and bottom lines. Revenue came in at around $76 billion, a year-over-year increase of only 1% compared to 32% in the fourth quarter of 2021. YouTube revenue also missed analyst expectations, coming in at $7.96 billion compared to the previous year’s $8.63 billion.

Google announced cuts of approximately 12,000 jobs in January of this year and expects costs related to employee severance to run between $1.9 and $2.3 billion. The company will recognize most of these expenses in the first quarter of 2023.

Analysts anticipate headwinds for Google as it announced plans to optimize its global office space. It’s likely that Google will invest heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) this year to remain competitive with the release of ChatGPT and Microsoft’s integration of the chatbot with Bing.

Alphabet decided to start monetizing YouTube Shorts this month, bringing revenue sharing to the product, which has grown in average daily views from 30 billion to 50 billion across 2022. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned YouTube’s NFL Sunday Ticket as another offering that will hopefully bring more people to the platform.

The Gonzalez Case and SCOTUS

Gonzalez v. Google LLC is a court case that will appear before the Supreme Court this term and could impact Alphabet and the internet. The case deals with computer services that make targeted recommendations, like YouTube, and situations when these recommendations unintentionally promote terrorism-related content hosted on the service.

If a recommender system can be held liable for promoting dangerous content to users and Google isn’t immunized under Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act, it could significantly shift the operations of a service like YouTube.

Arguments for this case are scheduled to begin on February 21, 2023. We’ll continue to follow this case and its results.

What does this mean for investors?

The leadership changes at YouTube have Alphabet’s shareholders wondering if the platform can start contributing more substantially to the company’s revenue. Furthermore, the pending court ruling has investors questioning what the future holds for advertisers in the emerging tech sector if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule in Google’s favor.

Mohan’s experience in advertising for Google and his background in launching new products for YouTube may bode well for investors who are hoping YouTube will do more to contribute to Alphabet’s bottom line. However, YouTube is just one facet of Alphabet’s financials, and its overall impact is small compared to Google Search and Google Advertising.

The bigger issue at play seems to be the pending court case. If Google loses the case and there is a complete overhaul of Section 230, profits from advertising could decline due to the need to filter content to avoid promoting dangerous messages.

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The bottom line

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down after nine years with the video-sharing platform and 25 years at its parent company, Google. Neal Mohan will replace Wojcicki, hoping to help reinvigorate Alphabet’s earnings by boosting YouTube’s revenue.

Alphabet is facing many challenges as technology continues to advance and legal proceedings get underway. Time will tell if the company can get back on track.

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