After Nine Years, Google’s Udi Manber Moves On

Credit: Google

Udi Manber has left the building — the Googleplex, that is. After roughly nine years at the company, Manber is joining the National Institutes of Health in an unnamed capacity. Most recently, Manber was VP of Engineering at YouTube. 

Previously, he had been in charge of search products at Google.

Manber has had an illustrious career in academia and at major companies in Silicon Valley. In the ’90s Manber was a professor at the University of Arizona. Later, he became chief scientist at Yahoo. He was one of the first to implement Captchas at Yahoo to fight bots. In 2002, Manber joined Amazon as an algorithms VP. He subsequently became CEO of Amazon’s search unit A9.

While at Amazon, he presided over the launch of Amazon’s Block View street-level photography initiative, which predated Google Street View. However, after several of his projects at A9 were shuttered, he jumped to Google and became a VP of engineering, ultimately taking on a key role with Google’s search products and user experience. He succeeded Marissa Mayer when she was moved over the Maps and Local at Google.

Manber was also responsible for the now defunct Google Knol. Late last year, he moved to YouTube with the revamp of the leadership of that organization.

He was quoted in the Wall Street Journal about his departure from Google:

I had a wonderful nine years at Google and YouTube, but I could not resist the amazing opportunities at NIH . . . Improving access to medical knowledge can have a big impact. I hope to help.

Manber’s exit comes on the heels of the announced departure of another of Google’s high-ranking search executives, Senior VP Of Knowledge, Alan Eustace.