I Confronted YouTubes 'Scary' New CEO

I'm about to interview Neil Mohan the CEO of YouTube not going to lie I'm a little bit nervous well okay I wanted to ask you about stealing I feel like I'm rich what is enough MoneyWise ah wow that's an interesting question would you swap jobs with me for a day I don't think I could do your job I don't I don't think that is such a nice way to say I couldn't do your job when you were first announced people were anticipating this they were calling you to some degrees like an nft guy why did why do you think that happened by the way you can't you can't speak on us I know you can't speak on us I can see it in your eyes so we won't talk about it anymore can you give me your favorite product and then your least favorite product that you've made in YouTube I don't think I'm going to pick a favorite product uh okay you're more willing to pick a least favorite product I have your answer if you don't by the way if you could get a bionic arm would you get it if it was more powerful and augmented your body I once upon a time got a nice juicy fat contract from YouTube do you know how much it was for I was [Music] paid that is a very small vehicle uh it's a k truck wow it comes from Japan It actually drives on the opposite side of the road have you driv this thing before don't worry about it Neil just we'll get in the car we'll just get going we'll get it'll be a great time it'll be a great time you can trust me I have not been anything this small see if you can move this it's a little intimate yeah it's it is a stick so you should just okay y sorry no that never happens to me that's just ignore that uh we're good we're good so Neil hello yes it's great to see you to see you yeah I appreciate you coming out it's awesome I've been trying to get this going for a while yes uh and I apologize if there's been scheduling issues but it's awesome to get a chance to talk with you it's interesting because we share something in common February 16th is your anniversary of becoming a CEO that's right yeah and it's my Ann of being a YouTuber oh awesome February 16th 2018 awesome I got fired for my job at a vape company as the head of marketing I had $7,000 in my checkings account and I decided become a full-time YouTuber and a streamer I love it anyway it's been a year for you so my question how's it been well I think as you know lewi I've I've been at YouTube for long time for a long time like almost yeah and Google even longer double click yes you got you got it yeah like we don't everyone knows about the facts you know like the the nerdy history of it Colin and Samir can talk about that but this past year is what I'm really curious about cuz I feel like your life has changed a lot uh well I what I was going to say actually is that a lot of aspects of it haven't really changed that much I'm focused on a lot of the same things that I was doing when I was you know the chief product officer here around building great products for for uh for people like you but all of our viewers all over the world and that Still Remains honestly a big part uh of my job like when you walk the halls of YouTube it's mostly a lot of us talking about what's like the next awesome thing we can build for our creators and also for our viewers like and that aspect of the job has been the same I I would say what's been different is um I used to spend a lot of time with creators now I feel like I do even more of that which has been super fun and super interesting and you know frankly most of all it's the most inspiring part of my job and I'm not saying that I'm sitting to be honest with you like that is where not just me but I bet you a lot of the people you work with at YouTube get our inspiration from uh I'm not a creative person the way that you are but the work that you do is amazing and we love to build the tools I'm a technologist at heart so I love to build all of those tools and capabilities that uh allow you to do what you like to do well okay let me ask you a question because your life you said has mostly stayed the same but some stuff has changed like you're a lot more well-known and I imagine there's a lot more media you have to do are you also like were you in that crazy Sam Alman group chat like are are you in there with all the CEOs Silicon Valley like what's happening I was not in that group group chat and I guess if I was I don't know if I'd be allowed to tell you cuz I feel like I want to ask you about decisions I have a theory okay it is better to make a conventionally wrong decision confidently and have everybody steered towards that wrong decision and like working on it and believe in it than it is to necessarily have a wishy-washy right decision do you think that theory is right or wrong I'd say two things about that I I do agree with you that a faster decision even if it's a decision that you have to correct is better than no decision so I do agree with that but I also and I imagine this is the case uh in your job leading you know not just what you're doing on your channel but the various businesses that you run I feel like um you know by the time a decision gets to me it's often times a trade-off between two very difficult choices otherwise the decision would have been made somewhere else in my organization yeah right or wrongs may be wrong it's more like this path or this path and one could be marginally better but it's better to make the snap decision to the marginally worst path within reason of course right like the more data obviously you have the better the more opinions that you have that are different than yours the better but I do agree that trying to make those decisions more quickly being decisive about it is ultimately better for the organization better for all of our stakeholders better for the product you are a product guy you've made a lot of products can you give me your favorite product and then your least favorite product that you've made in YouTube oh my goodness now you're ask me to like pick uh pick one of your children yeah I'm it's going to come back to me when uh my teams watch this video so I don't think I'm actually I don't think I'm going to pick a favorite product okay uh because you're more willing to pick a least favorite product well let me think if I'm able to pick a least favorite product uh I have your answer if you don't by the way well give me give me what you think should be my least favorite you got to go first I can't tell you I know I have definitely made lots of wrong choices in terms of our products or features or what have you we have shut down products uh uh that that haven't worked but I you know what I want you to start I'll break the ice for you Neil cuz I I sense a hesitation here what do you I think look there's two that come to mind the first one which everyone who's watching this is going to say is the removal of dislikes however I don't consider that a product and ultimately I have an extension that fixes it anyway so I don't care about that here's what I care about stories that product I feel like was not was not it was not it but I understand why it was created because everybody was making stories did you try it a lot not once not no one time one time I did it one time I did it one time I did do it once so you do have firsthand experience I do have firstand experience and that's what I mean like when we learn that you know something isn't working on our platform uh we'll adjust it didn't solve a a a a real use case on YouTube yeah and so that is something that we learned frankly over time two things became clear one is that format wasn't really about short form video it turned out YouTube shorts was really about short form video Yeah and uh the other thing is that um that product that actually allowed for lots of Engagement between creators and your fans and your audience in between your videos actually turned out to be posts yeah and and so as a result of that it sort of like eliminated the need for that type of a format or product because we already had things that catered to those use cases that our creators cared about sometimes it's better to actually make a decision put something out there try it out learn iterate and if it doesn't work course correct it's okay that stories didn't work because it left us with shorts and Community posts that do work yeah that do work for what ultimately ended up being what we learned through the behavior of creators like yourself what creators really cared about and actually what their fans engage with let's talk about products that I guess weren't made because I talked to your predecessor Susan yes the other day she did she talk about me uh did she bring me up I'm hoping you can open up the dash right there and pull out something I have for you uhoh let's see this thing here yep right there now Neil do you know what that is I think it's a goose ass is that is a genuine Goose ass it is correct Neal that is an nft that I bet Susan she would have to buy from me for $1,000 if YouTube made a bad decision or a bad product in the nftd crypto space now it's been about 2 years since that interview yeah you guys haven't really made a product in that space uh I'm going to even expand on this a little further when you were first announced people were anticipating this they were calling you to some degrees like an nft guy why did why do you think that happened by the way uh I noticed that I think it's because you are a self-described technologist and you'll adopt any technology that you think AIDS people all right and we'll get to some of the tech technologies that that you have already adopted like AI okay and I think you were maybe coming from a more analytical point of view on how crypto or nfts could be used yeah and people were thinking about it from how they were actually used which was scamming people like Logan Paul did but I'm curious what your views on nfts and crypto are now and do you resent ever being considered this nft guy I don't really resent one way or the other at the end of the day it's all going to come down to what we actually end up building on behalf of our creators or not but on the first part of your question no we're not we're not doing anything uh in terms of building products in that space there was a lot of conversation around what the promise of that sort of Technology could be for things like easier transactions you know Federation of transactions and those types of things and then ultimately it turned out that uh there were a lot of other things that we we ended up prioritizing to benefit our creators and so the short answer to your question is no we're not doing anything there no nft stuff and so on that note the goose ass you're holding you can put it back in the dash maybe I should give it to Susan I have three more years on the BET oh okay if anything my request use make a feature yeah make a horrible nft feature or crypto feature so I can get $1,000 but seriously though what is your opinion on it do you think that it was uh did you ultimately feel like there's some promise there or how did you think about it I think the only real value was the use case that Susan gave to me which was probably sold to her by somebody which was there was a lot of selling YouTube channels and which is a kind of like a weird thing to do or YouTube videos as nfts and if you were to do that getting YouTube involved in that process in a smart contract wouldn't be a bad thing but I think from where crypto usually is being used or has been used as like a fundraising tool is a bad idea and I prefer the path that's been explored which is memberships and and AD Revenue in AdSense yeah and speaking of ways to make Revenue you know I Once Upon a Time got a nice juicy fat contract from YouTube like a sports star would do you know how much it was for I was paid looking back on that do you think that was a good idea or a bad idea the logic was there's a lot of learning that we can do by working with creators with talented people who are deeply invested in um you know particular set of use cases in this case you what you were doing with streaming in terms of the types of features and cap abilities that we should build on our platform that would allow for that genre of content to find a home and ultimately be successful in our platform and so that was a so the lens through which at least I was looking at it was through the lens of an investment in that type of learning ultimately just to be very just to be very transparent with you it was making a short-term investment into a group of creators to long-term help the platform for all creators well I I mean the way I like to think about it is it was like a way to get those insights or bootstrap or accelerate those insights in a way that we could actually do the things that we do best which is frankly to invest in creators like yourselves in the long term in a way that is our strength which is building by products and capabilities monetization tools Etc but I would say that we've built a lot of things there that we learned through that experience that uh we might have gotten to but it might have taken us a lot longer to have gotten to and so wait I helped when you come to our product reviews your name will be invoked around a lot of features particularly around streaming features uh and it doesn't mean that we're always going to be able to pull those off yeah but uh we have done a lot of those things that are based on those that feedback and insights and also just how we found um people would use our products your last exclusive signing was phas swag September 2022 excluding some resigns now how you currently see live streaming on YouTube do you see a need to to do these Investments or do you think the platform is at a point where it is sustainable without those outside Investments I don't think that um you know the program as was originally conceived is as relevant uh today uh and I think that our Focus honestly is like really building out that feature set that allows live streamers to do what they love on our platform and um you know I hope you've seen a lot of that investment around whether it's moderation whether it's Discovery and monetization has been a big area of focus for us uh there's lots more to be done there the work I think is never going to be done but like that's what we've been doing I would say it is getting better at the speed I'm going to lock that in L would say it's getting better well it's getting better at the speed that this car goes you know which is it's moving we're going forward we are going to get to the coffee place eventually okay however you've been moving really fast in another area specifically Al shorts and that is like a you got like a super car you got like a Ferrari or something it's definitely an area we've been investing very heavily for sure when Tik Tok started popping off and YouTube did not have shorts were there alarm bells ringing in your head I mean honestly I I don't I don't really Panic around a lot of different things I mean I think we are in um the business of our creators video uh for the long run I would say that the outside aspects that affect us and really feed into our road map are honestly what creators like yourselves and creators r large tell us and what our uh you know two billion viewers tell us through their through their behavior on our two billion people who watch YouTube we have two billion two billion users on our platform there was very clear this appetite for much shorter form video like I said mobile first vertically oriented and um having a product capability uh was important there and the other thing obviously that was really important about shorts was the sort of participatory nature of it where um you know creation and consumption sort of those Lines Blurred a little bit and I mean you'll recall that plus button in the app didn't used to be there years ago so like this notion of like ready creation actually was a was a was a concept uh that came out of it as well and so that's that was really the drive behind um The Innovation there but that doesn't mean that we're not investing in things like live and live streaming um you know I I mentioned a handful of features like you said there's lots more to be done there I understand the desire to go even faster there um some of the challenges of live are different than they are for VOD whether it's short form VOD or traditional VOD uh and so we have to you know we have to kind of make all of that work seamlessly in our platform so so that's that's some of what you see in terms of sometimes what you might perceive as us being maybe deliberating a little too long on a feature or something well I've actually become my third eye is awakened by Todd Todd part of snd yeah I spoke to him but he's made me realize that what ultimately matters is YouTube and so although like live streaming is a component of that it is the middle child of the components right it is not like long form videos which is like the root the the you know the proud son it's not like the youngest child which is growing the fastest and the strongest and it is the I think least used by most users and if you put too much effort into pushing it it can hurt the other two children so I think to a degree I've become happy with that knowledge and do you think it's fair to think of myself as a middle child with that in mind uh me your analogy I have a middle child who I love dearly well yeah you know but you know like the middle child mean right I know what you mean yes yes um of course you the uh again it's driven by the feedback that we get from our creators who are often times getting feedback from their fans and audience in the context of YouTube in the in the set of resources that we have we try to allocate them in a fashion that is sort of optimal for the you know creater ecosystem in Aggregate and um that means that there's a certain amount of investment going into lives certain amount going into shorts one area where we've been working um in a concerted fashion is monetization of live uh and that is an area where there's still lots of I think in the long run lots of upside lots of potential but we invented entire products and categories of products to help with live monetization that's where shopping Super Chat super stickers paid digital Goods some of the channel membership features that we have came out of uh the desire to actually make live a more compelling product for our creators some of the things that we have done on Discovery you know speaking of Todd for example came out of the fact that like the way our Discovery algorithms have to think about live is just inherently different than VOD and so so we do we do have Investments there uh to really nurture that format well I'm going to hold this because I do have a question on thievery well I'll ask you inside [Music] well okay I wanted to ask you about stealing cuz something that happens with YouTubers is there's a lot of sharing and sometimes stealing of idea right and I find it a bit flattering like I've had an idea before and then a Creator took that idea and then they ran with it I think it's cool it means I feel like I did something right MH you were talking about super chats some uh live streaming companies have implemented similar things do you see that happen do you care about it when they take an idea or is it just part of the game because you're like hey I've taken stories you know how does that work I really try not to focus on it uh at uh I really try to go back to ultimately the feedback that we're getting directly from our creators and our and our viewers and I know it sound a little bit like a broken record on it but that is truly what happens in our product reviews so when we when we do when we do a feature like the next set of conversations around it like to take Super Chat as an example is like what worked about it what hasn't been working about it what do we do next what are the things that we didn't anticipate about how our you know fans are using it how do we incorporate that into kind of the next Rev of the product that's really the way the conversation always ends up going and our our job is like as long as we continue to focus and innovate and pick the right ultimately on balance pick the right things to work on uh then we're going to be fine I have a total pivot on Wikipedia it says you are 50 to 51 like an ancient Roman Emperor cuz they don't have the information how is that like they're missing my actual birth date yeah they just they have like a range you know like like they've uncovered your tomb and they're still trying to count the the circles in it wow you're going to break news here what is your birthday July 14th you're a cancer I am yes I'm July 6th oh wow pleasure would you swap jobs with me for a day I don't think I could do your job I I don't think that is such a nice way to say I couldn't do your job no I don't think I have the talent to do your job like a streaming thing yeah if you were to make content what would would it be in sports yeah probably it's like I feel like it's the one area where I could say some stuff that would be I don't know if it'd be of substance but I could say stuff yeah I could speak on it you're a big basketball fan I am yeah I like I'm a like a general purpose sports fan I like all kinds of sports but yes I do love basketball do you ever shoot around a little bit I have kind of a bad back so I'm not I'm not great but I have a son who loves basketball so I shoot around with him okay all right I might have a challenge later we'll talk to you in the car do you shoot around I shoot around I play every oh wow just got so you're like legit I was uh an All-Star bench player in soccer okay for high school all right so you're an actual athlete well Ben bench Captain I would argue as I've gotten older I've gotten more into it yeah I'm more into basketball yeah yeah uh and I watch every Celtics highlights on YouTube I think you are already pursuing this and you probably can't say anything but it would be sick if that was on YouTube TV those uh highlight clips and the NBA games themselves I mean well YouTube TV has NBA games through our partners sure but like directly you can't you can't speak on this I know you can't speak on this I can see it in your eyes so we won't talk about it anymore instead we'll talk about shorts all right let's do it cuz I have a problem with shorts It's grown a lot and I get a lot of views from shorts but sometimes when I scroll through an hour of shorts I feel really bad oh now you're talking as just a as just a viewer as a consumer as a consumer of the videos and it's the only time where I'll conflate the term Doom scrolling with YouTube a website that that for the most part I never feel bad being on and I consume a lot of YouTube I consume a lot of YouTube live I consume a lot of YouTube long form but shorts because it seems so pervasive now and it's often times at the top of my feed I'll get sucked into it and the only thing I will leave after a session of scrolling through videos is how much time has passed as opposed to what I watched you watch different content in shorts than you do on the rest of YouTube or does it tend to be the same thing or I think it's curious it tends to to fall under similar themes but it usually escapes those themes so what what always suck me in cuz I watch recently cuz I've been getting into basketball I watch a lot of basketball highlights and it'll it'll be like craziest basketball dunk and I'm like I got to see this and then I'll scroll and maybe it's another basketball like top five crossovers to learn and then four later it's like just something totally unrelated and maybe it'll bring me back to basketball but but it'll always try to generally show me other things what I've noticed is that the goal has been grow shorts let's get bigger on shorts not just for your from your perspective but also from creators and so sometimes they use gimmicks which make the quality of the shorts worse but they do it to get more views and I'll give an example here have you ever seen the gimmick where people cut off a short intentionally before the video would naturally end so that you did not expect the ending increasing the view duration mhm have you seen this I mean I've seen I I know what you're talking about that general idea and so I see a lot of that and it and it pisses even Loops kind of piss me off yeah look I think that the reason I asked that question is in terms of your own kind of experience in the feed is the fundamental nature of our recommendation algorithms both on VOD and shorts uh have the notion of finding content that might be interesting to you that we think is interesting to you based on what you watch that's kind of the basis of personalization however for a long time and both uh across all of YouTube we have this notion of what we call satisfaction and it's not short-term satisfaction it's long-term satisfaction and so what that means is um we do try to measure via signals via direct feedback that we get and you've probably seen those surveys run Yeah in our feeds um this concept of like it's not like the satisfaction of that you get like after you eat a bag of potato chips but then afterwards like you're like why did I do that kind of thing it's like over a long period of time are you more satisfied by consuming this content on YouTube or not and that applies universally uh to YouTube so that's one thing to keep in mind I'm just giving you this uh like this kind of inside baseball on how our algorith how we think about our algorithms so you know that there are these other aspects that we take into account as opposed to like immediate engagement right then and there and and that's been an evolution for us I mean it used to be that um you know that the notion of things like watch time where do they come from they came from the aspect of like it shouldn't just be about clicking on the video like when we were a desktop site right like and that moved moved things away from like that immediate hook to long-term value of that video like you're actually watching it for some duration we took that we layered on the satisfaction concept onto it other aspects that layer on to are layer on top of the algorithm you know for example when people are looking you know in the context of things like news or medical information we'll raise up content that comes from authoritative sources so our our our responsibility objectives as you know a platform that has an impact on the world globally our other characteristics that go into our ranking algorithms and those sometimes are you know those are sometimes they might be countered to like immediate uh engagement uh and so I just I'm giving you all of this uh as factors that you should know are a lot of the signals that go into our algorithm and so what you ultimately see in the shorts feed and we're by no means perfect and there's always room for improvement is ultimately a combination of all of those things and it is not oriented around how do I get you to just stay here you know immediately to drive up engagement right then and there cuz I imagine long term that'd be worse true but I also think I agree with you but I also think that um I just I I do think that there is this fundamental notion and hopefully you get this sense you know everybody you talk to at YouTube of living up to our responsibility as a global platform that's a really big part and I always say this you know whenever I lay out the priorities for YouTube and I used to do this in my product job too those sets of priorities come off the top like that's where we whenever there's a tradeoff that's actually not a difficult trade-off for us we will bias that that is turns out that in the long run tier Point that's actually good for our business too but uh independent of that that's the right thing to do and we are going to prioritize that whether it's shorts whether it's VOD live streams Etc and that's I think held Us in good instead and we're going to we're going to continue to make that literally the top of the top of the pyramid you're a product guy I have product idea okay you're scrolling through shorts and you know how sometimes it pops up and it's like hey you've been scrolling for a long time you know or something like that when it pops up it says hey you've been scrolling for an hour and 14 minutes do you feel good about the time you've spent scrolling huh cuz asking for any individual short is tough you've probably scrolled through 400 at that point so if you do that maybe talked about the entire session you get like a like the happy or sad face like when you walk out of a fancy toilet mhm good I mean we're always open to look at what that what that intervention looks like um your point is like ask the question yes to make it a more active moment yes should think about that okay just think about are like that's a I got a few things up here yeah send us send us the list we love getting your list just give me your personal cell I'll just send it to you I I will give you my personal cell text them to me all right we'll get out of here we got to get you backa you're busy man thank you everybody yo that cappuccino is fire thank [Music] you [Music] some have called you a master negotiator do you have any any negotiation tactics someone once told me that when it comes to a negotiation that if you can actually focus on ways to really grow The Pie as opposed to focusing on how much of a fixed pie you're going to try to carve off for yourself that's often times results in better outcomes and so that's kind of like a general concept but I think it's kind of a general uh good Rule and really all it means is like if there's ways to think outside the box on a problem you're looking to solve it might be beneficial to both parties like actually in good faith try to make it a successful deal for both parties and it's not always you know that's why you know not every negotiation or deal or Arrangement works out but I I have found that if you try to approach it that way um often times ideas pop up that otherwise wouldn't have been there at the beginning of those types of conversations and so that's sort of that's sort of a lens that I've always had I feel like I'm rich and I say this because I've been wondering this to myself when is enough money wise and I'm hoping you can answer this as a mentor as a guy who's made a good amount of money is there a line where you're like yeah I'm good or is it something you don't think about and you just happen to earn money like where does money fit in your life ah wow that's an interesting question um and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to give you like a great answer on that what I would say is you know I do think about sort of what is the motivation as to you know maybe where why come to work every day or like what do I end up actually end up doing with my time and by the way you touched on this in your video in terms of you know while YouTubers retire so I you know frankly I think you watch it yeah I watched it I watched it like you you were super nuanced about it and I thought you like it like yeah I thought I think you kind of hit on a couple points and I think that point that you made about not just why somebody might quote unquote retire MH but how I think is it wasn't interesting and and I thought that was really that was really interesting so so just kind of riffing on that um for me the motivation of coming to work has to be about like what am I actually doing with my time like you know you you mentioned money but I would say another sort of scarce quantity or thing to think about is uh your own time like we all ultimately have you know finite time in a day in a week um in life yeah you know in life just you know not to get super deep about it but uh you might as well try to focus on something that's actually motivating for you and if you look at sort of the way that I've at least thought about my career even before I was at YouTube you know you mentioned Google and double click a lot of it has been about um combining two things for me um you asked me to get very personal here but I have but you don't have to I appreciate you no no no have but I but it's really been about the fact that I do love technology you said that I describe myself that way and I I I've always been that way way since I was a kid but the other thing that I've always loved is like media and creative Pursuits not because I have that talent but because I enjoy it and when I was uh working in advertising at double click and Google A lot of it was about enabling that right like what does advertising do just like it does on YouTube it also does it across the internet it enables the production of all this amazing content and ideas that we all consume and like to watch or read or listen to that's like my MO motivation and that's inspiring to me and so that thread has carried through through my career including my time at YouTube but also before my time at YouTube and so when it comes to like spending my scarce resource of time or how I like to go about my day that's a big part of it is it fair to say that your goal is using technology you want to help enable creators creative types and create basically the best ecosystem for them to thrive and if that is the goal when do you get to end I mean in a in a nutshell that is that is a that is the goal that's a big part of the goal that is you know a much more eloquent way of putting what I was saying in terms of my motivation and frankly I think a lot of my colleagues and co-workers uh motivation at YouTube uh and I think for YouTube for where the product that we build and where we work my my again to you to use a sports analogy I think that we're we're probably still in the first or second inning first or second inning honestly speaking like I really think that we're still in the early days what of what the capabilities here can be think about where YouTube was when me at the zoo got uploaded right like and think about where it is today that was 17 years ago 18 you know almost two decades ago right and think about where YouTube will be two decades from now like it will be profoundly different and I just I just think that like we're more so on the early side of that Journey than even halfway through or or certainly the later side of that journey and that's like super super exciting we're sitting right now in the middle of what I think is kind of like the early phases of a pretty profound Paradigm platform shift in terms of what we're seeing with AI for example the types of opportunities that that's going to enable for creativity back to your back to this concept of Creator ecosystem like I don't think we've actually imagined all of them yet like you see all the things that you know you're starting to see pop up but I think that like the real use cases both on the creation side as well as on the consumption side are yet to be invented and so like that's going to be a huge accelerant and I think the cool thing about you know getting to work at YouTube is we get to be at the center of that like profound shift in technology AI in this example but also human creativity and so our reason for being is to actually harness that technology not as a replacement for human creativity but as a means to actually Empower it like I don't think it ever can I'm a firm believer that I can't replace human creativity I I don't either and I I like one thing I feel like I know for sure is that and I but I do think that it will lead to some incredible tools like something that you could uh you might imagine as a creative person today that you know in your head is like that's going to be imposs possible to pull off a year from now or two years from now it may actually be in the realm of possible and that's like the super exciting thing and I feel like it's YouTube's job to deliver those tools and capabilities to you so that's that's sort of how I think about it you thinking of things being in the first or second inning is a very motivating thing because I think as a Creator sometimes creators think they're over their Peak or past like their Prime and they think that they're in the seventh or eighth inning and it's very hard to stay motivated if you're that late in the game but to think you're that early it makes a lot more sense why you're so gung-ho about doing what you do yeah and I think that I mean you you you kind of touched on some of this in in your video too like it's like it's like you know we we're talking about it in the context of like creators retiring or or quote unquote stopping being a YouTuber right and you know your your point was a good one which is like it's not really like retirement in the classic sense of the term term it's like doing something different and it might be that like the definition of a YouTuber in some sense is slightly different or very different a few years from now and that's super interesting and exciting too cuz like the creative possibilities that might come out of it are very different and so that's that's sort of how I I I view these things you've talked ad nauseum about AI because it is one of the biggest topics do you fear at all like the singularity like I feel like being in Silicon Valley it would be very easy to immediately start fearing it or perhaps start loving it too much where do you put yourself on that Spectrum I think that uh when I say that it is going to be a paradigm shift or a platform shift and this is this is my view obviously seeing what the potential is the capabilities are uh we collaborate very closely at YouTube with Google Deep Mind for example and so I I get I'm privileged to get to see The Cutting Edge of what's happening in this field so I do think that it will be a very powerful set of tools and capabilities that we all will have as human beings um but that's the lens through which I look at it and you know I happen to look at it through the lens of you know what we just talked about like allowing people to be creative allowing people to reach their full potential in the creative Pursuits and in that through that lens I really view it as um a set of tools and capabilities that will that we need to develop and invent and emerge we have this uh experiment running it's called dream track the ones from the newsletter the dream track is that yeah actually did you have you so yeah so I read your letters please respectfully but I I would it be correct to say you are bullish on AI augmentation more so than AI as a replacement that is 100% the lens through which I see it and it's the lens through which all all the product teams and Engineering uh leaders and and talent and YouTube really sees it and it might be that like the actual tool or the amazing thing that comes out of it we haven't invented yet that's definitely the case um but as long as we continue to look at through that sort of augmentation lens I think that's that's that's YouTube's strength if you could get a bionic arm would you get it if it was more powerful and augmented your body you know like is it is it reversible no definitely not reversible okay I don't know if I would jump at that right away okay you'd wait I might would you oh yeah man you you do it I would be if I could shoot threes like Steph Curry please you've had a lot of success and YouTube has had a lot of success and you've worked very hard for a lot of these successes but I have to ask how much do you factor luck to the success you and YouTube have had I believe that luck uh plays a role in you know all aspects of this and like you know I'm using like luck in a general term right like yes you know you were you know you and I were born in specific eras right like there was certain technology that existed that didn't exist before you know one of the biggest things I would say is like YouTube was this technology platform this capability this set of rules that allowed for things to happen but YouTube would be nowhere if it wasn't for our creators they're the heart of YouTube so is that luck or is that like opportunity meets like preparedness right like kind of a thing so yeah so those are that's that's that's the lens through which I look at it I sometimes cuz I find that I've been lucky based off like the general factors of life that I cannot control the fact that I was born where I was born with enough money to buy like a Blue Yeti microphone with the passion for YouTube and the era that I was in I find it difficult to deal with a lot of success being placed in luck because it makes me feel a bit a bit guilty how do I feel better uh I don't I think you got to talk to a lot of people to give you all kinds of opinions about that I mean I can on do you ever think about that I mean I I do think about uh I think about responsibility if if that's is sort of one way to think about it which is I feel that um YouTube uh you know where I spend a lot of my time time uh does a lot of amazing things in the world in terms of giving opportunity right like in the sense that um when you decided to become a Creator on our platform nobody told you that um hey lwig you don't you don't like you don't like look the right way or you don't sound the right way or like your idea is not a good idea or what have you you could do it and you were able to connect with your audience and kind of and accomplish that and I think that that's like I I feel like as long as we're enabling those types of opportunities um then on balance YouTube is is is really a Force for good in terms of of of delivering that in the world and by the way that I gave you a Creator example that applies on the on the uh you know viewer side as uh as well we all have our own personal experiences myself included many times over of an Insight that we've got or something that we've learned uh or something amazing that we saw on YouTube uh and um that's sort of how I think about kind of our place in the world our responsibility I'm driven by a sense of responsibility it's actually like my main motivator is that I have a company offbrand and it has 30 employees yeah and I feel responsible to each and every one of them to make sure that they have like a livelihood and that they're you know not going to be out on the street or whatever yeah which is a burden and you have this burden with a much higher multiplier uh so I guess my question is like how do you deal with that is that why you just put your nose to the ground and grind like what I mean it's kind of I mean it's very similar to what you just said which is you described it as you know like kind of you described it as a burden but you also said it's kind of like what what you're driven by and that's how I think about it too and and when I when I'm describing this concept of responsibility at YouTube It's of course uh to all of us all of my colleagues at YouTube but uh all of our Co all of my colleagues feel this responsibility in terms of the millions of creators on our platform the billions of users on our platform and I do think that's a motivator um it certainly is for me and when I speak with my colleagues I feel like that's that's an in it's a it's a it's a responsibility and use your term maybe a burden in that way but it's a responsibility that's also a privilege frankly it is can I tell you my dream yeah I've been a creator for 6 years my motivation at first was daily uploading mhm then it was being the biggest I could be as a streamer I achieved both those to a degree now my motivation is making offbrand profitable okay without the need for me as a Creator fueling the Enterprise like making the business profitable without the lwig brand exactly yeah interesting cuz we service other creators as well as as myself yeah then I want to quit and [ __ ] off to France or Japan and open up a bakery and make bread I did hear about your bakery Vision why do you have to quit to do that though well I think it's how you exit MH I see cuz I could half ass YouTube and half ass a bakery or I could exit on my terms my way and just open up my bakery not to say I can't make a video a year of working as a baker or whatever but what happens with your company back to your point around well I have to make it profitable first okay without the need for me and then it's on its own and then yes I want it to beas the need for you as a brand but it might have the need for you as a leader but everything should be able to exist without me because everything has existed without me in the same way that you know same with YouTube exactly it can exist without without Susan at Helm and eventually it'll be able to exist without you at home 100% but while you're here and while I'm here as a CEO I want to do the best I can so it has the best chance yeah that makes sense do you have a uh a Time Horizon on this or have you not thought about that aspect I've thought about it I think I can do it in two and a half years wow that's ambitious two and a half to five years that's my timeline wow it's my motivation it pushes me yeah how do you inspire and motivate others to achieve something that's ambitious like being profitable in 2 and a half years or being the best at short form within 2 years like how do you inspire others to to to get that done yeah I mean I think part of it is actually sort of what you just did which is articulating a vision and kind of a path there as I imagine that some version of what you said is what you share with your teams and the like and I think that that's motivating and inspiring for people I think that what motivates myself but our colleagues is not necessarily like let's be like the biggest at this or or what have you it's really back to like did we build a service or c a product that just gets really really great feedback and usage by our creators and viewers so you know we talked a lot about shorts we talked a lot about live um uh from a Creator's perspective but also like we we love to hear that kind of feedback from our uh viewers like I love to hear when I'm either you know at dinner or even like just walking somewhere and somebody will say oh you know because of you I discovered XYZ Creator like that is like the goal and the motivator or you know I was watching the NFL on YouTube and I I love your multi view feature or what have you like like that like that's that's the motivator yeah for for me and I think it is for a lot of my colleagues you just like making dope [ __ ] at its core yeah and that's like the long term back to my like that's why I think we're sort of still in the first or second inning of it there's a whole long road of things um that I think we're going to get to continue to build and deliver for uh for creators really all over the world like we're just getting started on it well I have two final things because we're just about at your office and you got some stuff to do all right the first one I want you to give me a prediction on YouTube in five years is it mainly short Centric is it long form Centric is it a mixture as it is today has the mixture changed where do you see it I I I see it as a mixture like it is today the the mix might change a little bit do you think it'll be more TV even more TV yes do you think it'll keep going up yes I mean that is as you know I mentioned it in my letter it's our fastest growing surface we didn't talk much about it but it's an it's something that I'm super super excited about uh it's great for our creators uh we have lots of creators who it's now their primary um surface uh in terms of where they're discovered and watched uh and I think that there's just a lot of real interesting things we can do given that surface area given the context the users in in their family room on their couch that is different than what you do on a mobile device so yes I'm super fired up about it last thing yeah will you come to my bakery when it's open I will 100% come to your bakery lock it in lock it in well hey I appreciate it let's get out of here I got to get you back to work okay thank you that was fun I do have a gift for you as well I forgot about this oh my goodness wow do you perhaps have a bedet at your house uh I do not have a bedet at my house no I don't well uh I made my own bedet you're a product guy so I'm hoping you'll take it back and and you know I can help you get someone to install it but that is awesome it's a it's a swipe plus P thank you oh wow it's got a heated seat heated water it's great for the tushy and also for the soul I uh can't wait to check it out thank you so much apprciate I did not realize this is how what I would leave with so very excited thank you we got something for you too actually yes you spoke about uh okay the dream of a bakery yes I have I think these are a couple things that are going to get you started okay so yeah should I open them now out to open let's check it out all right which one do I open first is this going to help with my bakery it will is it okay YouTube remember all of us when we're uh YouTube aprons yes okay got your name on it there wait it has my name on it look at that and one for Cutie too look at that okay and then what's this bad boy oh YouTube Rolling p okay maybe I something to remember us by I got to start Bing bre now yeah well thank you very much I appreciate it absolute pleas than you for making the time was awesome out the conversation it's Thursday usually I smoke weed and play valer on [Music] Thursdays

Channel: Ludwig

Views: 1,061,869

Keywords: ludwig, ludwigahgren, ahgren, gaming, chat, stream, decides, lud

Id: 4L01lVKfWKk

Length: 50min 24sec (3024 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024