YouTube’s Ex-CPO Says He Had to ‘Ask for Investment’ From Google

Leaders need to know how to pitch — even inside a trillion-dollar company like Google.

Shishir Mehrotra helped lead YouTube through its early 2010s boom. He introduced some of the platform’s most notable features like skippable ads, eventually serving as chief product officer. Mehrotra has since left the company, and is now the CEO of Grammarly.

Money wasn’t falling from the sky at YouTube, Mehrotra said on the “Grit” podcast. When he wanted money, he needed to ask for it.

“Google had a cash pile over there, but I had to go ask for investment from it,” Mehrotra said. “It’s just like raising money from a venture capitalist.”

When Mehrotra joined YouTube in 2008, the company was still unprofitable. After two years, the company turned a profit — but only got to keep 75% of its spoils.

“Every dollar we made, 25 cents went to corporate and 75 cents we could spend,” Mehrotra said. “I effectively had a dividend to Google.”

Even with Google’s “cash pile,” Mehrotra said that raising money is easier from outside of big company than within.

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At Google, Mehrotra said that there’s only one person who can sign off on major investments: CEO Sundar Pichai. “Everybody around you can say no, and only one person can say yes,” he said.

Mehrotra compared that model to someone like Sam Altman, who recently raised $8.3 billion for OpenAI, per CNBC. Where YouTube seeks funding from Google alone, OpenAI seeks funding from a broad group of outside investors.

“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.”

Mehrotra began at Grammarly in January, following the company’s acquisition of Coda. Since then, Grammarly has closed $1 billion in financing from General Catalyst.

Grammarly doesn’t have a big corporate parent to feed off of like YouTube did. Then again, Mehrotra said YouTube didn’t have “infinite money.”