After Twitter's Parag Aggarwal, a new Indian CEO will sit on YouTube's throne!

Neal Mohan joins the ranks of a long list of famous Indian-origin CEOs of multinational companies in the US, after he was appointed as the CEO of YouTube on Friday!

20th February 2023
1 min read

There is a NEW Silicon Valley CEO in town. But, guess what country he is from?

Indian-origin executives taking the top position in companies account for 5% of all CEOs in public US-based MNCs.

And, now Neal Mohan is joining the ranks of this amazing list, that includes names like Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet!

Wondering what I am talking about?

Well, on Friday, Susan Wojcicki quit as the YouTube CEO, who was then replaced by Indian-American business executive Neal Mohan.

Both Susan and Neal have held top positions at YouTube and Google for the better part of 2 decades. They have contributed immensely to building YouTube to the brilliantly massive company it is today, generating ~$30B in revenue!

So, let’s get to know more about YouTube’s history, its ties with Google and its 2 amazing CEOs! What better way to do this than a quiz 😉

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How Indigo beat Kingfisher, Jet Airways & SpiceJet to stay profitable for 10 years!?
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How to buildd a SaaS survey product on a $38 NoCode stack in just a few months?

What exactly is Serenifits?

Serenifits is a non-intrusive way to gather and structure an employee's anonymous feedback into data.

Here's how it works:
- Every 2 weeks employees take a Heartbeat survey
- The tool aggregates the data from the survey
- It then presents a department-wise overview

Problem ⇒ Building the product takes a long time & costs a lot
Solution ⇒ The team used NoCode tools to create the product from scratch

Final survey tool dashboard could:
a) automatically send surveys
b) collect and analyze the survey data
c) visualize the data

NoCode Tech Stack
1. Validation ➝ SurveyMonkey ➝ $100
2. Development ➝ Bubble ➝ $16/month
3. Bubble Plugins ➝ $10/month

4. Email ➝ Gmail business account ➝ $12/month
5. Domain ➝ $20/year

So, their one-time cost was $120 and their recurring cost was ~$38/month!

Amazon vs Shopify - Why Amazon acquired Shopify's rival Selz?

Amazon made $469B in 2021 & it's now worth $1.42 trillion dollars!

Guess who Amazon's biggest rival is?
Walmart? eBay? Target? — Nah!

It’s the 2006 startup, Shopify, that even now makes just 1% of Amazon's revenue! But, how? Well, let's find out!

First, let's understand the difference between Amazon & Shopify!

Amazon => Retailer (wholesale products) + Marketplace (3rd party sellers)
Shopify => It is a platform that allows e-commerce companies to go online

Amazon has complete control over the marketplace, while Shopify simply facilitates contact between sellers & consumers
But, Shopify makes $4.6B in revenue, that's 100x less than Amazon's revenue.

Let's break down their GMV to figure out why Shopify can compete with Amazon:

GMV => Gross Merchandise Value => the sum value of all the products & services sold by a particular platform.

Amazon's total GMV in 2021 => $610B

Out of this
a) Amazon Retail's GMV => $220B (36%)
b) Third-party GMV => $390B (64%)

Now, Shopify's GMV in 2021 => $175B

If we just consider third-party sales, then Amazon's GMV is twice as large as Shopify. So, clearly, Amazon is in the lead.

But, the insight is not in the numbers, it's in the trends.

Shopify's GMV was 45% of Amazon in 2021. Only 3 years ago it was 25%.

So, Shopify is growing & that too, quickly!

The trend shows that traditional marketplaces are not the only option for merchants anymore.

The D2C businesses are also a viable option in 2022.

Amazon also has other problems. But, it's never wise to underestimate Amazon.

Now, in the past, Amazon has tried to buildd a startup similar to Shopify, but both times it failed. It has now acquired Shopify's competitor Selz! So, let's see how things go!

How Indigo beat Kingfisher, Jet Airways & SpiceJet to stay profitable for 10 years!?

The aviation industry is ruthless. Since its inception in 1938, the government of India had a strong hold on the space with Air India. But, in 1994 things changed. The regulations were repealed and private players could enter the market.

This change allowed full-service airlines like Jet Airways, Kingfisher, and Sahara, to make their entry. At that time, air travel was considered a luxury. But, with the entry of low-cost carriers like Indigo and SpiceJet, air tickets became more affordable.

In 2005, two such players entered the market at the same time - Indigo and Kingfisher. But, while Kingfisher crashed and burned, Indigo soared!

In the first couple of years, both players were making losses proportional to growth. But, during the financial crisis when markets crashed and fuel prices skyrocketed, Indigo turned profitable. Kingfisher, on the other hand, 5x its losses & eventually closed operations in 4 years.

Indigo pulled this off using their "sale and leaseback" strategy. With this strategy, Indigo bulk orders aircraft from Airbus at a discounted rate. Then, they sell these aircraft to a lesson like BOC aviation. And, then they rent back the same aircraft for 5-6 years.

But, that's not it! Indigo's operations are highly efficient. They started with a ONE configuration model and reduced their charges by only providing travellers with a seat and leg space. On top of that, their fleet has only 1 kind of aeroplane which reduce their maintenance cost.

When you combine all this, you get a highly efficiently run company that was able o produce profits for 10 years straight!