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 Dream11 makes Rs 2554 Cr in revenue & Rs 327 Cr in profits?

From schooling in London, to university in Pennsylvania, Harsh Jain grew up with fantasy football. When he came back to India, fantasy games were non-existent.

When IPL was launched in 2008, Harsh was stoked. He and his friend Bhavit Seth started working on building their very own fantasy game!

When Dream11 started out, the gaming industry experts all declared it to be the worst idea ever. And, they weren't wrong. Why? Well, there are several reasons:
1. Harsh had borrowed money from his parents and he was quickly running out.
2. Dream11 was running as a free app with ads

3. Finally, instead of focusing on the fantasy game element, they created a bunch of different features like blogs, forums, casual games and more!

The cluttered app, plus no incentive for players had the initial team tanking.

For a while, Dream11 became a side project and Harsh had to focus on his services business. But, after they saw some success there, they came back to Dream11. After dumping all the extra features & making Dream11 into a paid app, the team was set on a track to fantasy game domination.

But, how does Dream11 work?
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Players join different contests for a particular live game by paying entry fees. The money from all these players makes the total money pool.

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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!

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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:

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

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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.

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Bootstrap to IPO: How EaseMyTrip managed to stay profitable during COVID?

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So, they made a major transformation from a B2B company to a B2C platform! Now, being a B2C business, EMT didn't have to share 5% of the commission with the travel agents!

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