Youtube: Meet the Man behind the Monetization

It's a natural human tendency to want to name-drop.  Typically, our own daily lives are incosequential at worst and ho-hum at best, so we often look to our friends (via Facebook, Twitter, and the like) for flashes of inspiration or brushes with greatness through which we can live vicariously.  At times it's enough of a rush for us to hear that Ryan Gosling stood in front of my neighbor's cousin's nanny in the Starbucks line; in other more meaningful instances, I was ACTUALLY there myself, and I have the digital evidence to prove it to my friends.

And then there's the rare case where one of our good friends, who we've known forever since he (or she) was a nothing nobody, actually goes and changes the world... and we were an up-front witness to the whole process.  In the world of digital media, Youtube's Shishir Mehrotra has attained demigod status.  And yes, he happens to be a close friend of yours truly.  Whenever he's in town, we get together to catch up over cocktails and some obscenely bro-mantic view of NYC's lights.  The above pic is a shot of us at Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District last year, when Mehrotra was in town for Google meetings and a mutual friend's wedding.

It's not a stretch to say that Mehrotra - known to his childhood and college buddies as "Bunty" - solved Youtube's monetization problem all by himself.  You can read about it here and here.  While all that is quite fascinating, wha'ts even more fascinating are the different pieces that make up the colorful mosaic that is Bunty.  For example:

• During our time together at MIT, where we were housemates at Alpha Tau Omega, he was widely acknowledged as the hardest-working brother in our fraternity.  He was a bit of an insomniac, and he often stayed up late into the morning to crush his assignments and help other more feeble-minded brothers (such as yours truly) with their tasks.
• When he was a sophomore, he started his own company called Centrata with 3 of my other brothers.  The company, which dealt with P2P technology, was eventually sold to Silicon Valley investors.
• He loves craft beers, and he adores good scotch.
• He married his college sweetheart Anjuli - a pediatrician who shares Bunty's sharp, humorous wit - and their daughters are two of the smartest little whippersnappers I know.  The apple definitely doesn't fall far from the tree.
• He indulges in stupid comedies, and can still recite every word from Billy Madison, and in Adam Sandler's uber-annoying pitch.

I've known Bunty so long that I never see him first and foremost for the amazing way he's revolutionized digital media - he's just another one of my good friends doing great things, albeit on a scale I can only dream of.  Am I proud of him?  You bet I am.  But am I surprised?  Not at all.  Success like this is decades in the making, and I've seen it being built up-close... piece by colorful piece.