Salar Kamangar was named CEO of YouTube, a Google subsidiary, after the resignation of YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley in October 2010. He was originally hired as Google's ninth employee in 1999, when he was a 22-year-old Stanford graduate with a degree in biology, and he oversaw development of the search giant's business plan in the early 2000s.

Beginning in 2001, he helped design Google's automated AdWords text advertising sales and placement system, which uses instant computerized auctions and algorithms to determine ad rates and placement, and quickly emerged as the cornerstone of Google's cash flow. A 2006 article in Business Week summarized his contribution succinctly: "It's safe to say that without Kamangar, Google wouldn't be Google". Five names are listed in three different configurations as co-inventors on the first four patents for AdWords, but Kamangar is the only name credited on all four of those patents.

Beginning in the mid-2000s, Kamangar oversaw the Blogger, Calendar, Checkout, Docs, Gmail, Google TV, Orkut, Picasa, Reader, Spreadsheets, Talk, Video, and YouTube platforms. YouTube has occupied most of his attention since about 2008, and he was intimately involved in the video site's day-to-day operation as it added more advertising and came closer to profitability. Technologically, he oversaw development of YouTube's system for automated flagging of corporate-content videos to address copyright violation issues, and the "Insight" system that allows content providers to track the demographics and geographics of video viewers.

Kamangar keeps a low public profile, but he is known to have dated Ivanka Trump. He was born in Iran but raised in America, and he is a US citizen.