How YouTube did to cable what cable did to broadcast

What can we learn from Shishir Mehrotra?

When Shishir Mehrotra joined YouTube in 2008 the early conversations were about whether YouTube was an asset worth keeping for Google. He was slandered and abused when he went to meetings with cable executives claiming that online video was the new TV. Luckily none of this put Shishir off and he played a big part in making YouTube the defacto new TV. As he puts it: “YouTube did to cable what cable had done to broadcast”.

Shishir is the co-founder of Coda one of our newest portfolio companies. Shishir is fast-talking, bold, and thoughtful. With Coda he is taking on Microsoft Office and Google Docs, so you may say he is also crazy. He combines a highly analytical MIT trained mind with deep thinking about product and leadership. In that order! Most importantly; he gets s… done! How that happens you will learn below.

Originally, we found Coda as Atte our Chief Data Scientist was looking for an appropriate tool for collaborative work, pipeline management, CRM + a host of other things. The best answer he found was Coda. It so happened that Shishir had been a guest at one of our earlier World of Connections events in California and through that connection our partner Rohini went off and grabbed a slice of the new round that Shishir was busy…