Salar Kamangar

Kamangar's contributions to the search giant, where he was employee No. 9, run deep. Among them: creating Google's first business plan and leading the product-management teams for moneymaking advertising products and web services like Gmail. Now the Tehran-born, press-shy Stanford graduate is leading the charge with YouTube, the video-sharing site that brings in over 800 million visitors a month. To further its reach, YouTube is spending over $100 million to launch 100 channels of original content. The goal: transform the service into a TV-like destination. Pivot: Kamangar was pre-med before finding his calling. --J.P.M.