Neal Mohan

When Neal Mohan arrived as CEO in early 2023, YouTube’s years as the digital equivalent of America’s Funniest Home Videos were already behind it, but Mohan supercharged the platform’s growth and omnipresence. It is now the place where people are as likely to watch NFL games, podcasts, or Saturday Night Live as they are to watch locally sourced content like MrBeast and CoComelon. 

It’s on every screen in the home. It’s on every media planner’s list, and in 2025 it became the most popular video provider on TV sets in the U.S. This wasn’t totally Mohan’s doing—Google’s products tend to flood whatever zone they’re in—but he played a key role.

Leading YouTube requires several discrete and usually mutually exclusive skills. Mohan has enough nerdiness to earn the respect of software engineers plus sufficient charm to woo advertisers. He has negotiated deals with the biggest sports leagues in the world, yet his warmth has earned the loyalty of creators. As Michelle Khare, who started her own successful channel, puts it: “Approachability is one of Neal’s superpowers.”

Luscombe is a TIME editor-at-large