We interviewed the CEO of YouTube

creators that take their eye off that ball that's where the problem starts what do you know Neil or what did you know is that a realistic future or creators that is going to happen don't get any ideas from this Neil would you want to choose amongst 10 artificially generated no it doesn't necessarily feel like a priority to YouTube why the magic of YouTube is that we can upload videos to the platform and get paid through a revenue share model and that technology that allows for that to happen was built in large part by Neil Mohan we had an hour with Neil at the YouTube offices in New York city so we asked as many questions as we could and we gave him our feedback on the platform in this episode we talk to Neil about the impact of shorts on YouTube We also talk about our concerns about AI generated content and we ask him what creators need to know about the future of YouTube so if you have feedback for the platform or if you have other questions for Neil you can put those in the comments for this video all right here's our conversation with Youtube CEO Neil Mahan [Music] when I first started making YouTube videos in 2010 to my Indian parents it was a very confusing career choice and uh I think it's like such a Monumental moment in my career to be sitting here with the CEO of YouTube and not only the CEO of YouTube but the Indian CEO of YouTube and I just wanted to share that for my family like knowing that I was doing this was such a big marker in my career of success um so I'm really grateful for you coming on the show and being a part of this well first of all I appreciate you saying that very much um I try to explain sort of what I do day-to-day I think it still gets lost with with my mom uh but curious how did how did you explain it in 2010 in 2010 it was hard to explain but it was like at the time I was pitching it as I was making a TV network on the internet I I had actually worked for a year in Hollywood mhm and I really didn't like it it felt like it was a very ly process I felt capable of doing everything involved in that process yeah so I pitched it like that and I worked on the you know in my bedroom at my parents house uploading videos and originally there was excitement but you know over the next two years as it was it was a slow growth for me it wasn't explosive I think they got increasingly more concerned you know until it finally worked uh now you say I told you so Mom and Dad now like many many years later Neil Uncle says it's cool to do this right yeah exactly no it's great to be here with with with both of you obviously I'm like the whole team at YouTube you know are big admirers of of what you guys do you really are like like connoisseurs of this whole Creator economy and so it's great to be here I'm G to write that word down so I want our audience to have a better understanding of who you are and some of your background and for Samir and I he mentioned like we first started uploading to YouTube 2010 2011 uh it would be the first of many channels that we would start and I'm curious 2010 2011 where are you in your relationship to YouTube your YouTube Journey where are at that time well actually you know to give you sort of the whole story I'll start even earlier than that so um so I've been at Google for a very long time 15 years um and um kind of roughly about half my time at Google has been at YouTube and prior to that I was responsible I I you know I ran our display and video ads products so I was on the advertising side of our business but the reason why that's relevant is that before either I or YouTube were part of Google YouTube was my biggest one of my biggest Partners when I was at double click helping run double click and double click was the company that you know we sold to Google and and um it's kind of like like the infrastructure or the kind of the backbone of advertising across the internet and I still remember this um before I was at Google there was this like small company above a pizza parlor in Sano California that I would visit um because they were one of our fastest growing clients and I would go there and i' talk uh to the folks um at YouTube about making sure that everything that I was building at double click was keeping Pace with like this crazy growth that they were experiencing on video and this is like I'm talking like 2007 maybe even earlier than then and so that's really my relationship with Google I was responsible for helping monetize YouTube before either of us showed up at Google and so when I came to Google when we sold double click to Google um YouTube was part of kind of my portfolio from a monetization standpoint so I continued sort of that journey of working with YouTube but really from the standpoint of helping YouTube and creators on the platform earn money through advertising in so the advertising products that we ultimately offered to advertisers how how we thought about you know managing yield on the platform all of that was my purview and so I worked very closely with YouTube from that standpoint and then uh you know that was through kind of the acquisition of YouTube and double click fast forward a few years come around 2015 my boss who was on the ad side Susan wiu jitsy my good friend she was over at YouTube and she said hey do you want to come over and help you know build products at YouTube and so of course I jumped at that opportunity a to work with her again but also to do what I was doing on the advertiser side but bring it to the consumer Vision as well as what we were building for creators like all of you and so that's when I came over as the chief product officer back in back in 2015 now um and so my my kind of relationship with YouTube has gone all the way back to 2007 I'm curious I feel like for creators it's easy for and I to know like what we're best at there's two of us I feel like I'm more on the creative side Samir has been more on the business side of course they overlap uh but we know what makes us unique and probably uniquely qualified to sort of succeed at what we do what do you think makes you uniquely qualified to be a good CEO of YouTube I'd actually take it back to even before um you know kind of my professional career began I was born in Indiana I grew up in Michigan for most of my childhood so uh and I remember um growing up in this small town in Michigan you know I had lots of friends I did what you know kids that age did Little League teams Etc but I also remember sort of distinctly and maybe you have you know similar experience I was like you know there was like two Indian kids in the entire School District the other one also happened to be named Neil I think I was a little bit better at baseball than he was but like we were like the two kids and you know it was there was nothing you know nothing in particular about that but I just I kind of noticed that and so I always had this sort of like kind of Outsiders perspective on on that and I feel like you know ever since I can remember sort of the thing that sort of strung everything together for me was was like storytelling that's why I feel like you know I have such an you know kind of I'm I'm so attracted to sort of that media side of of YouTube and at the same time I've always been a technologist at heart right like I had like my own little software company when I was in high school I loved messing around with computers and the dream for me is like putting those two things together and I couldn't think of anything that is the perfect encapsulation of that more than YouTube yeah I would also say I I had a similar experience to you growing up and I would say what YouTube offered to me where did you grow up by the way I grew up in La okay um and I had a similar experience and what YouTube offered to me was an opportunity to find people like me right cuz like you can feel like an outsider and then as the internet emerged you were like oh there's other people interested in this Niche thing like our first YouTube channel was about lacoss that was pretty Niche uh in 2010 to do but we found tens of thousands and eventually hundreds of thousands of people who were interested in the same thing it's almost like finding your tribe on the internet you make me feel a little old because I didn't have that when I was kid no you did not yeah but the uh but that but that that connect connection is really kind of what I'm you could send like a fax to someone right that's or I pick up a magazine that was like magazine yeah all right all right my dad used to send fact could also send the family in India so I remember that very well okay I do think though on G's question about your unique qualifications there's a headline about you Neil and I think you probably know what I'm gonna bring up I think I could guess but there's a headline that that Google paid you a hundred million dollar to stay at Google because Twitter was interested in having you work at Twitter and this I think was around 2011 you know I can't remember the exact year and I'm not going to comment about any of that sort of stuff and you know there's all all kinds of speculation on the internet what I've learned is that nothing ever dies on the internet for sure so okay let's get into some of the product feedback then because we have a list a list but I I think you know in coming into this conversation we asked our community as well about like what subject matter was interesting and since we've been loading to YouTube you know from 2010 2011 to now probably the most substantial change is short form content right YouTube shorts is one of the most substantial changes to the ecosystem um a lot of the announcements that are being made this week you know largely about um supporting short form content as well and and the increase of short form content lowering the the barrier to entry to upload to Youtube I'm curious because you come from an you know the adtech background you've essentially enabled our ability to to monetize what we do on the platform the biggest question is around shorts monetization and you know now that we're we're a couple months into it um what is the future of shorts monetization and and that ad product is that a realistic future for creators to be able to monetize at the same scale that we monetize on long form content yeah I mean that's that is a that is I think a pretty profound question and and I I I know that that's a question that's on the top of mine for creators frankly of all sies uh and I know that your your community gives you gives you that feedback as well I'd say a couple things first of all um you know this is going to sound cliche but you know we really still are in the very early days of that journey in terms of shorts and shorts monetization in particular I'll come back to that in a second but the kind of one meta point that I would want to make is you know the the we are very invested in YouTube shorts but we are also a long form platform we're also a live platform we're podcasting platform in the sense of like this conversation we're having here and so um living up to that mission of being truly multiformat you are creative people you have a way of connecting with your audience and what my job is to provide you with the tool set the stage if you will to do that in whatever format works for you and so if you were telling me that you were 100% all in on shorts I would say that's great if you're telling me that you tried it and you're really 100% in on Long form uh that's great too and so I just want to leave that meta message to all the creators out there that really ultimately it's got to be what works for them and Their audience I'll say that on the creative side on your question around monetization um my experience and you know I've you know have built a career building ad products is that um it's really really important to get that um fit in terms of you know viewer value proposition Creator value proposition on the short side as you know that is what we have been kind of maniacally focused on for the last few years and then if we can get that right which we feel like we have you know shorts I think is just surpassed 70 billion views a day back in January that number was 50 billion so it's continuing to grow at an incredibly rapid Pace then the monetization pieces will come because the audience is there and we know at Google and YouTube how to turn that into ad products that work for the viewers and therefore work for the advertisers and I would just say that we are still in the early days of that Journey but since we've launched you know we announced actually at at maidon the the new you know ypp program you know shorts monetization since we've launched the Rev share model um crater payouts have increased every single month since launching it and so like the trajectory is there we still have ways to go um but that is going to come through the invention of ads products you've already seen I think um uh both on the direct respon font side and on the brand side of our Advertiser products um a suite of products now that frankly some of didn't even exist 12 months ago so imagine what it's going to look like 12 months from now so I think we're on that Journey the monetization is going to be there my vision is that um both in terms of audience building and in monetization um it should be the it should be really about what the creators are looking to do and then all those pieces should take care of themselves so we're in it for the long haul I'm very very committed to it it's the reason why we have a robust scalable program around shorts monetization as opposed to say like a fund or something like that uh is because I think that my experience is that like we just we know how we're going to get there do you think it would be something that Samir and I were talking about is that potentially it would be helpful to supplement the revenue share on shorts with bringing back a fund do you think that's like a smart thing to do or do you think funds should be sort of left I you know I think from my standpoint I really you know and I I share this with our team all the time too is we really want to do the right thing from a long game perspective and really the only answer to this is to continue to build that monetization capability really from the ground up that means good Advertiser facing products for brand brand use cases for direct response use cases making sure that they work from a user standpoint that there's guard rails in terms of you know protecting the user experience and ultimately that's what turns into Creator Revenue that I think has to be like the the the like kind of the the focus of our teams I think you know a a fund was a way for us to sort of get things off the ground in the near term but funds are not scalable um and I don't think funds show long-term commitment and they don't uh for a couple reasons one is like they really are limited to the purview of a handful of creators but also they um they don't have the predictability of the YouTube Partner program like we you know one of the things things that I'm very proud of is that the YouTube Partner program is pretty transparent and it's broadly predictable like the Rev share Concepts um the the mechanics of the payouts how it moves from an ad dollar ultimately to a Creator dollar like that's pretty transparent and so I would I would rather replicate what we built on the VOD side of things to shorts as opposed to like a fund which I just don't think scales but what do you guys think yeah I think you know can we were heavily invested in shorts last year and it brought us substantial growth um I think one of our fears was that some of that growth was subscribers that were interested in the content we're making on short form and a subscriber that is enjoys shortform content versus a subscriber who will sit for a two-hour podcast um and that was a that was a a challenge for us that we were like I don't know that we want to carry that into this year um so we've reduced our short form output but we've actually extended our episodes to be way longer now we're in the 2our plus range and we're seeing our watch time go up which is bumping our cpms and our our our AdSense revenue is at the highest it's ever been um so I think on shorts though what what I will say from a feedback perspective the most viewed Colin and Samir videos on YouTube are shorts that are made by other people mhm now no one at least that I know uses the remake tool for that right they're downloading the content re-editing it and uploading it and from a brand perspective that's totally fine like Colin and I view it as the more our brand can out get out there the better we're building a brand um but what I'm curious about in the future is like how can the content ID system be enhanced so that that is that does become mutually beneficial for creators um where the remix tool is unlikely I think at all times to be used right people are going to download and cut it in their own way how can we track that um and can we have the option to say hey we'd actually like this short to link back to our video or hey maybe we want to share Revenue because you're using our source material yeah um it's a it's a it's an interesting question I mean first of all I think you guys know we we do have Community guidelines that are against you know taking people's content verbatim and just kind of uploading it right like all the all that sort of thing but I think what you're describing as like it's sufficiently derivative in a way that could ultimately sort of work for you it's also but I would say like the cultural guidelines between YouTube creators are different than the community guidelines right sure and there are comps even like the NBA with their Playmakers like that's beneficial for them for creators to have access to the footage yeah and there are creators at scale where it's kind of beneficial for us too if people want to create with it yeah no it's interesting I mean it's definitely something that will me Content ID has worked really well I would argue for our overall ecosystem around broadly that sort of use case that you're describing so um so I will noodle on that I guess I'll ask this but I'll suggest it more so is like I think the way that it can work because we found that content ID does not pick up when someone adds their own subtitles even right when they tangibly change the visual of it it's going to not necessarily pick up to me it feels like like our voices or something recognizable that potentially will need to be protected or need to enter into that system eventually would be the best way to to track if someone's using our content yeah I mean look we're looking at all of those things and I mean some of that is we're looking at in the in the broader context of sort of how video audio content is going to be transformed with you know all the AI tools Etc that are out there as well so I think generally conceptually we're thinking about all those things but this is probably the way that we're going to figure it out is like conversations with creators I mean it's it's kind kind of what I do it's what our teams do so this is the type of stuff that's going to go into the design and whether it whether it works exactly the way content like content ID Works in a very very very specific way like kind of a mash I mean a a match of a hash kind of video audio type file um in the world that you're describing is it something conceptually that's similar but a little bit of a different technology those are all the types of things that we're we're talking about but I definitely get the the use case that you're describing um both in sort of the mix scenario but also in terms of like how technology is going to be able to you know kind of replicate some of these things as well yeah yeah you bring up AI there and that's definitely something we want to touch on I'm curious what do you think are the biggest challenges that AI poses for the the health of YouTube and then what are the sort of biggest benefits that you see yeah I mean look so I I'm an optimist I mean I do think there's challenges and I I'll get to those in a second but I think on the whole it's going to my my um thesis is that it's going to be a net positive and probably a net really big positive for our creator ecosystem and I I'll give you sort of my thoughts but I'm curious to get yours too in fact like a lot of the things that we're that we're talking about and made on YouTube are actually about AI enhancing human creativity at the end of the day I firmly believe that there's never going to be a replacement of that probably in the world but certainly on YouTube like people want to connect with you your audience you know the stories that you tell the Nuance ways that you actually explain the Creator economy Etc there is no replication for the fact that it's coming from you and coming from your expertise having said that I do think that there's things that we will be able to do with AI that will enhance that profoundly and it will show up in terms of Creator tools right change my background enhance my video in this particular particular way augment it with this video that I've been able to generate from say a text prompt like all of that is like super super magical and I get super excited about it but it's not a replacement in any way for our creators uh I think so that's why I'm bullish like it's going to be a set of tools on the around the Creator side by the way I also think it'll be a set of like really interesting tools and capabilities perhaps for your audience as well so for example um you know I've consumed your content um let's say I've watched you know an hour and a half of it uh is there something that I could do to test the takeaways that come out of it can I can I um digest that in a particular way that's interesting that's useful to me um you know like the classic example I give is like a kid watching an algebra video on YouTube could they quiz themselves afterwards right like now with generative AI you can do those types of things so I think the positive are going to be a lot of those interesting use cases there are challenges you mentioned one of them around um uh you know things like Creator rights and those kind that's a very important sort of critical thing to think about and then the other really big challenge um that I think we will um put a lot of resources to and I think ultimately we can handle but is going to be a challenge which is around you know responsibility and making sure that we're dealing with things like deep fakes and you know potential misinformation because the cost of that has become really low with generative AI had an interesting scenario that happened to us because our our voices are like so incredibly available on the internet right so our voices were cloned it was as part of our interview with Mr Beast basically that conversation was was taken our voices were cloned and our lips were deep fak to talk about an online casino that Jimmy was was opening with a link to put in credit card information we were able to get it taken down very fast it was not on YouTube um but that to me feels like the future is like is there a name and would you describe that as like a like a true deep fake or like kind of like a shallow fake where like somebody just it was clear that if you look closely and if it was a scam if you looked closely enough yes but okay but a lot of people yeah a lot of people don't I I think like the world glances they don't necessarily read right also our assumption is that this is only getting easier to do only look better yeah I think like a name image and likeness ID is something that will I think will be inevitable for creators right like we will have to protect that yeah um and do you think that that is a um that's like an active conversation in the Creator Community I mean obviously you're you've thought a lot about this I get some of this feedback when creators talk to me but I'm curious how deeply penetrated this type of thinking has been because I have to say that even a few months ago it wasn't a top of Mind thing in a way that I thought it might I think it sometimes comes up in like fun conversation around even Licensing in the future right like Okay can someone license our voice for a podcast ad re can they generate it themselves even when you think about adtech mhm like you'd have to assume that advertisements could be generated in the future right so like can can you license your name image and likeness for that and say Hey you have access to this you can generate an ad so more as like an affirmative opportunity versus a def def of the coin right it's both sides of the coin it's exciting and it's also scary because you know what do you what do you do when you don't have control yeah I also think right now we may be uh uniquely experiencing it perhaps more than some other creators because uh obviously like in that episode with Mr Beast he is someone who is linked to money and giving away money yeah right so that's easier I think I'm sure Finance creators have that problem I know they have that problem in the comments with like Bots and things like that there is I imagine though it's something that like we may be a little bit ahead right now in terms of having that fear and optimism in that scenario there is a conversation about AI in the Creator Community primarily because of a Creator named quel cop are you familiar with his channel uh a little bit yeah he's transitioned to essentially an AI generated version of him of himself it's an avatar the transcripts are AI generated the vo is AI generated and that's caused some polarity in in the Creator community of like it's not a fully autonomous Channel but it feels like it's moving in a direction where these are you know like it's like a vtuber but the transcripts are based on a history of 10 years of of content creation that has caused some polarity of like is that a positive or negative for the ecosystem and health of what do you guys think I get concerned when I think about if there is an influx of semi-autonomous content and it perhaps floods YouTube that's your concern as the flooding piece yeah and there is and there is perhaps an appetite for it and it starts to change uh what it means for viewers to enjoy the platform and what it means for creators to succeed on the platform if there truly is so much yeah that's interesting I mean I I I think I um I mean remains to be seen for sure right like nobody nobody knows the sort of the full picture there my feeling is and this has been my experience on YouTube and it's uh which is um the content that audiences want to see ultimately sort of what Rises to the to the top and you know our Corpus is pretty enormous already and there's a you know distribution of you know uh engagement with with video they're not all sort of created equal now you said something I think there um Colin that I think is is interesting which is like the fears maybe the audiences gravitate towards that that's certainly a possibility I still come back to the fact that like what really really makes YouTube what it is is is you guys like it's it's it's creators and it like creators are like human beings right like we watch live sports because we want to see the best humans compete against each other in that type of an environment and it's like that's a form of Storytelling because you're like you're connected you're invested in those people that are there um as opposed to if they were like Bots arguing with or you know playing against each other and so that that's my take quickly on live sports and we'll get deeper into live sports but I also think that it's the best unscripted content out there because you don't know where it's going yes right and and that I think is becoming harder and harder to find the more content gets up on streaming platforms and on YouTube it's like we kind of have a sense of the storytelling formats now yeah although what I was going to say is the reason why you gravitate towards maybe Sports in this case is because it's like a real human being and you don't know where they're going it's a story that's unfolding and I think that that aspect is back to your kind of original question that's going to remain yeah well I think also though everyone has a feeling of ownership over YouTube as a creator of like whatever got them into YouTube and then fear that YouTube will look different right like we as creators constantly talk about what the meta is of the moment and like when we really got into and we started the Colin and Samir channel was during what we call like the the Casey nicad era when Casey was was vlogging and it felt so uniquely human you know and now we're kind of in this I'd say format driven era of challenges and game shows and almost like the reinvention of of reality TV on onto YouTube and so I think everyone has like a a fear that the meta changes to something that they're uncomfortable with but it is at the end of the day I think the AI fear comes because audiences actually might like it if you look at like animated content you know we like if one of the arguments was like if SpongeBob was an AI generated voice and AI generated transcript would you care probably not I I yeah I mean although I I just still think that like you know whether it's music whether it's creative content like what what you produce what creators produce like that human aspect of it I just think is going to be like core to what YouTube is I mean I do think that one of the kind of our lifeblood and what really distinguishes us from any other platform out there even in this multiformat world even with things like Trends and kind of the thing of the day is like is like creators like what I love to hear for example is when you know creators describe their experience with YouTube shorts is like they things like oh when I'm on YouTube shorts I feel like my audience remembers who's on the other side of that camera they remember my face they and as opposed to like you know just going zipping through kind of a feed sort of thing and I would argue that that is because our ethos is about creators right like that's ultimately what it's about you're right like The Meta kind of like sort of uh format dour Etc might change over time and yes creators have to adjust to those types of things but it still comes back to the fact that it is ultimately about the creators I do think the one thing I've heard you talk about before is connection like what makes YouTube different is the connection to the audience yeah that's our magic and I think that's for us we push a lot of creators to think about the concept of building depth With Their audience rather than just sheer width yeah um and for us that comes in the form of very long form conversation we're able to build depth with our audience through that um and we look at depth and measure depth from the perspective of watch time and avd average view duration I'm curious how you think about measuring connection I mean I think personally I think uh it it really varies across you know across Creator types I would argue that with short form content creators on YouTube are able to establish you know creators that have leaned into that format they're not not producing you know 2our 1 hour conversations super in-depth conversations like this they're producing content that's 15 to 30 seconds but I would argue over some period of time they can have that depth of Engagement With Their audience in that format too Gamers you know I we have Gamers from 10hour live streams to producing 30 second shorts and I would argue that for whatever for that varies from Creator to Creator you know our um podcasters on our platform connect with their audience in different ways than vloggers do it and so I do think that that's um it's different my experience is that it's different from Creator to Creator and the Common Thread is that YouTube's the platform that allows you to actually do that in the first place I mean we have creators that um you know have never done anything like a post in between their video uploads we have creators that lean into that super super heavily and that's where their connection and creativity is and so I would argue to them and I think this is the way they think about it is like it's not just about engagement time on their videos it's about that interaction that they're having on their posts in between videos and that's all depth of audience in my mind do subscribers still matter Neil I mean I you guys know this like I means uh and you know how roughly our algorithm works I mean I I do think that they they matter in um in a whole multitude of ways right obviously we still have the subscriptions feed um there you know I think that they're they're an important part of the part of the picture yeah what do you guys think I mainly just want to know if they're going to remain an important part or if they're going to lessen insignificance because I think that was one of our concerns why do you think they would why do you think they would why what would what do you think would change it I think we realized that you know we grew a lot because of shorts in terms of subscribers uh in 2022 and it didn't feel like there was a a heavy direct correlation it always comes down to do we make the best video each week 100% yeah I also think the the question that I always have is like active subscribers and we look at returning viewers as a metric of like how active is our community CU again we're we're constantly trying to measure the depth of connection that we currently have right and that can be quantifiable through uh you know average views per video that can be quantifiable through returning viewers uh engagements per video but subscribers to me feels like the least relevant metric to our depth of connection because they could have subscribed five years ago for something completely different and not be interested think it's part of the mix and I think it varies from channel to channel I mean we have I mean I we work with creators I've talked to many creators who've shifted sort of completely in terms of the nature of the content that they produce and yeah in that case it has a different sort of characteristic uh versus a Creator who's just starting out for example or a Creator who's been very very consistent in terms of their format but you know I think that in terms of like has their relative importance changed or decreased or increased I would say that their subscriber counts are still part of the mix in the same way that they've been on YouTube and for YouTube it's exactly what you guys said it's about producing that content that's going to be the most engaging and most relevant for your audience and that's ultimately what matters did you ever hide views on videos uh I just think about like the context of Instagram and how like now people can keep likes as a private metric yeah I mean as you know anytime we make changes to that uh to that uh that part of real estate is don't make that CH but I thought about it I was like this public view thing is is uh like one of the most substantial differences like everyone knows how well we're doing our job you know Netflix doesn't share yeah we don't have any CH we don't have any any plans to to change that I mean we're a video platform where it's about viewing the videos and that's that's kind of core to what we do every year at maidon I feel like I'm kind of waiting for a community product M from YouTube uh like I you know we have a Discord Community that's where we engage but to me it almost feels you mean more than comments and post yeah it feels almost strange that it's off platform that we're like we're building a depth with our community yeah but the comment section is not the best place to Foster Community the comment section like isn't static every time you put out a new video it's almost like it's going Downstream and if you're a Community member you're not going to come back to a video that's maybe 2 weeks old and have that conversation or months old and the nice thing about like a Discord is that it is that static sort of location but when you guys think about Discord in terms of community is it sort of that live aspect um that really draws you or is it like sort of like the fact or like the synchronous aspect that sort of that is that what you mean by yeah it's probably the synchronous aspect just that like we have there's also a place where you know it's it's multifaceted in that you can DM you can have you know uh a conversation about different subject matters you can have threaded conversations we sort of have that on some of our live content it's not the same like with creators engaging in chat and and the I think chat is where we see Community yeah the the most substantial community on YouTube is is chat right in terms of synchronous in terms of synchronous yeah um because asynchronous Community is is your audience on your channel really but but I hear you on that that to me I would say like interesting you know one of the biggest opportunities I think for YouTube from a product perspective again when we think about like what we're doing like our business model as creators right and CEO to CEO let me bring you into the world of Colin and smear um but like we are building a very specific audience right through our content um people like us we're building People Like Us now they build a depth of connection that allows us to message to them uh advertising messaging right relevant products relevant advertisers that we do through brand Partnerships obviously it allows the you know YouTube video surface to be an advertising surface for Relevant products to the people watching um but to take it a step further if we want to transact directly with our audience if we want to you know continue to Foster that Community we're taking them off platform to do that we're going to you know we have a newsletter um where we where we send it three times a week to our audience so we have an email list with them that we can own uh we take them to a Discord community and I think that's the piece for me that you know I look at as partners you know and I'm like I would like to retain some of that inside the ecosystem um but even you know memberships and alternative monetization like we're doing those off platform why I would say to me you know the 7030 split is is one piece of it that's like it's more competitive off platform and I understand that keeping it in the ecosystem has a lot of value um but I would also say that and maybe this is flipping into a question to you but but also say it doesn't necessarily feel like a priority to YouTube yeah I mean look again our priorities are ultimately driven and you know I know this because I sit in a ton of these product reviews every single week are driven by what your priorities are I mean that is where our road map comes from even back to the beginning of this conversation in terms of short form content we got a lot of feedback from creators and from viewers but from creators around short form content and so our priorities are driven that way I mean you know in in in your in your point you you said a few things there um you talk about creating those commercial opportunities that feel relevant to your audience I mean that's obviously our ads business we should continue to enable that monetization for you but we've been investing heavily in enabling shopping opportunities for our creators and you know whether they're physical Goods whether their services we really do want to enable it we want to have tagging in your videos right like I think the latest stat I saw was something like 150 billion times we've served up a piece of content whether it's short or long form with a shopping video on that point just saw from one of our team members that we made like a significant amount of money in a short that linked through YouTube shopping to our products uh more more it had 36 million views it made more than the ad revenue on on the short so I think those are going to be the types of opportuni which is signicant and we want to have that back to your point like we want to we think it's good from a viewer standpoint or viewers tell us this to actually have that be as frictionless and seamless as possible because they don't want to get away from what they were on YouTube in the first place doing which is watching your content one thing I think is substantial that we talk about quite a bit internally and don't get any ideas from the ne but I do think it's like very substantial that YouTube doesn't asked to participate in like our brand Partnerships business you know like or or in the businesses that we're building on top of YouTube or even that are linked through YouTube I do find that like when you look at the p chart of a Creator business like brand deals is going to be probably one of the most substantial or merchandise if you're a different type of Creator and those are both businesses that we get to build on the platform but or utilize the platform to build but retain all the revenue yeah I mean I'll just tell you sort of my philosophy on that and this has gone you know and I've been you know building products at YouTube for a very long time it comes back to me about um YouTube needs to ultimately con uh needs to feel like your home and needs to continue to feel like your home and so uh when I hear about those types of opportunities that are off platform business building opportunities for our creators um I think that's awesome uh as long as like you know they feel like their home is still YouTube Their audience is on YouTube uh we're enabling like this whole you know broader ecosystem outside of YouTube but those creators are still YouTubers they're they their audiences and that's that's really what I care having said that like should we make some of those things easier yeah we're investing in shopping first party uh being able to link to uh third party we have an affiliate program we want to create all those opportunities Channel memberships we're investing we're trying to build those products on platform but if there's ways that you generate money off platform through a newsletter or what have you like to me I think that's pretty awesome because your home is YouTube that's where you're building your audience and that's that's ultimately I think great for you but it's also frankly great for YouTube on the flip side of that I'm curious how you feel about creators who are finding off-platform opportunities that are also uh content driven by advertising if you think about one of the comments that we got in our Discord was about Emma Chamberlin and the fact that her podcast is exclusive to Spotify for me I feel like YouTube would be a better place because she's so YouTube Native if her podcast were to stay on YouTube yeah I mean I'd love to have our podcast on YouTube I mean we've we've uh you know speak podcast I mean you you guys know this like we've been invested it's interesting without having us have done much frankly you know that's on us we're one one of the world's largest podcasting platforms today and so for the last couple years as you know we've been investing both on the listener side but actually this year in particular uh more on the podcaster side in terms of like uh episode specific analytics podcast playlists um those types of features on the viewer side things like you know not just having hosted podcasts but access to RSS feed so you can get those podcasts so we want to be back to this sort of multiformat thing we want to be the best platform for podcasters as well so my my answer would be if you're it's really about your home audience your home base like the people you know the people that know your content and you should be able to connect with them whether you're doing a vlog or a podcast and YouTube should should be the place for that that that's that's back to this sort of homebased argument I think for us and this might be a little bit of a reaction to shorts Samir and I I think feel very attached to long form content and to protecting what we see as the bread and butter of YouTube which is long form content and I look at Emma Chamberlain's podcast or uh creators like Michelle Kare with challenge accepted or destroying and I think man I I hope that YouTube can keep these people on the platform and some of them like in the Emma Chamberlain example go off because there's an exclusive deal to leave um and I know on YouTube there's exclusive deals for streamers and I wonder would there ever be exclusive deals for long form content creators whether it's podcast or serialized content yeah I mean my my take on that is ultimately it goes back to what has brought us success has brought our creator success is to really focus on um the core products like making sure that we are the best you know long form platform the best short form platform investing in the product building the monetization products that make it so that if you invest the time to produce the content you can generate a return and that's the only way that I know uh um success comes in the long term so that's what that's what I'm going to focus on that's what we're going to focus on uh and so because otherwise I feel like everything else is sort of kind of shortterm nature okay let's talk about the NFL deal NFL Sunday Ticket I correct me if I'm wrong but I think the largest deal in Google history uh I mean I we've we we do lots of deals at Google a big deal billion uh an important investment for sure are you a big football fan or I'm a sportsman yeah okay yeah I watch sports I actually funny enough watched Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV on in the the split screen view which was super cool uh and this NFL deal to me feels like a pretty substantial moment in YouTube history and I was I'm GNA give you one feature feedback thing here on YouTube TV because I know you're heavily involved in YouTube TV but when I'm watching the NFL on YouTube TV is there a reason I can't go into a YouTube video like can I wouldn't it make sense if I could watch like destroying right after or in in the commercials of you know YouTube TV that I could just watch a YouTube video I have to go out of YouTube and or out of YouTube TV and into YouTube to watch yeah I mean so that's really interesting I happen to be a big what I would like and what feels good to me and I know you can watch Sunday Ticket on YouTube but you're bringing a ton of audience to a YouTube ecosystem I would love for that audience to be able to discover us yeah you know and maybe it's like yeah that that I'm just curious about that so what I tell you on that Samir is I I do think that that is is going to happen um and I don't and I think and I think it's going to happen kind of in both directions I mean there's obviously the NFL has an audience that audience is on YouTube or YouTube TV now um but I also think um you know there's a latent late latent audience that was on YouTube that is also now going to be more interested in the live games that we have so I do think it's going to go both ways and so I think the the the short answer to your question is there's no reason why those types of things should not be enabled like I think that they're all pro user they're procreator the the great thing about the NFL is you know one of the reasons why they partnered with YouTube is because of our creator ecosystem you've seen it in there the amount of content and amount of access that they're giving to creators um but also the amount of just kind of um content that's produced organically around live games which was happening by the way before Sunday Ticket is enormous on our platform and now now that the live games are actually there that's just going to grow as well and you know so I think that but in terms of like user Choice like you don't need a dish on your house anymore kind of a thing terms of like the Technology Innovation back to building products like multiv view like I love it when we get so much positive feedback on that uh and then the third thing is like the Creator ecosystem when we meet with the NFL from the commissioner on down they are very focused on that because they know that's what their fans want particularly their younger fans on the Creator ecosystem piece Colin mentioned the NBA Playmakers and creators being able to create certain creators being able to create with NBA content the NBA rights are up for grabs next year do you see that in the future of YouTube I mean we're very I mean so first of all the NBA is a big partner of ours um we work with the NBA we've worked with them for a very very long time they have one of the largest sports channels on our platform and they're very leaned in as as as you've seen like they've been working with creators they H uh have been working with you know their own content in many many different ways for a very long time um you know right now the focus is you know making sure that we have an incredible Sunday Ticket experience NFL experience for our fans on the platform um so there's probably nothing I'll say about about that broader sort of Rights conversation other than the fact that you know they're one of our close Partners just like the NFL is and really again their interest in YouTube is for the same reason which is that's where their fans are particular their younger fans and the expectation of those those younger fans is um they want to consume all of that content there all in one spot so like your example uh is actually you know I think is a very is a very consumer-driven example our largest and fastest growing screen as you guys know is the television screen and the expectation of young people is they want their live game there alongside their favorite creators and that seamless experiences I think is going to be part of the magic that you're going to see here I think one of the most interesting things is that while I was watching the NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV I was in the off times scrolling shorts M and the fact that you can have me on both of those devices feels pretty substantial uh to the future of the platform and I think if we can connect where the long form creators fit in like where does jesser fit in if I'm watching a live NBA game and then shorts and then can I go over to a long form jesser video that to me like that's the Ben mutually beneficial ecosystem to us as long for so I couldn't agree with you more I mean one of the reasons why I've been so excited about I mean I happen to be a sports fan myself but like a a big reason is like these types of like very Pro viewer type use cases that like work for our creator ecosystem but also then work for the sports leagues as well so I'm I'm I'm all in on that we do have to ask you what you watch on YouTube that was requested from Marquez directly to yeah what do you actually watch I watch obviously you guys I watch a lot of Marquez right answer you can just stop us just stop yeah there it is I mean I watch a lot of like a lot of the creators that you know people that you've had on your program um let's see what else I but I watch a lot of you know my sports highlight reel is on YouTube right like I watch I watch a lot of a lot of sports highlights I we're a big music household so you know everything from Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo and everything in between kind of kind of and they're close together yes we have young dog AR a little bit of an battle right now so you might just a side in our in our household they're both uh they're both very popular yes um so yeah I mean I could go through a whole list of creators that I watch on a regular basis I have one more question for you and I feel like I have to ask you because I get the opportunity to sit with you here um if you were CEO of Colin and Samir what would you focus on right now ah that is an interesting well first of all I don't I'm I'm going to say something very naive because you guys have probably thought about it a million times more so than me so but again I would I honestly would come back to you know because I get a I get a lot of this I get these questions from creators regularly and my sort of kind of point is and I don't need to tell you guys this because you know this probably better than most almost any Creator in the world is it really comes back to uh connecting with your audience doing what you really find to be the most fulfilling way to do that so I'm honestly repeating back some of what you said which is like that depth of audience like really building that establishing that home base is the basis of where all the opportunities come from and you know creators that take their eye off that ball you know that's that's where that's that's where the problem starts is there anything more specific that you think you know looking out the next 5 years knowing that youve an understanding of the vision of YouTube uh probably best that we should be thinking about as creators who are committed to YouTube you know for the foreseeable future I think a lot of it is going to come down to you know kind of a what we talked about in terms of AI I do think that that is going to be a um a platform type shift in the sense that like you know desktop to mobile was when that happened meaning that it it really is going to change I think the creation process the process by which you connect with your audience I said I think it's going to do that in a way that is positive for creators it's going to be an enhancement but it is going to be an adjustment and so all these conversations that we had around kind of kind of the intellectual conversation around you know what are your assets how do you think about them that's one aspect but also then how do you harness the power of this and I think creators that figure out some of these things or think through them that's um that's a piece of it a lot of Technology needs to get invented there still to make all of this possible but I would just i' point that out I do think that it is like a paradigm shift type moment that we find ourselves in I appreciate you taking time of course this is awesome no appreciate you guys making the time great to great to catch you had us here in in one of your offices we would love to have you at ours yeah check it out yeah where where exactly are you we're in Venice not so far from from I would love to do that i' would love to swing by yeah yeah yeah we can make this like a regular thing I'll bring my dad I'll be excited to meet you yeah that would be that would be awes awesome yeah yeah awes awesome thanks thanks for making time appreciate it great oh yes we do need to take a thumbnail yeah all right yeah we'll have to do yeah we didn't even talk about it didn't get well while you're taking the thumbnail photos we we'll need a few shots cuz we're going to AB test now we're AB testing yeah that was going to be my breaking news to you guys you guys are going to be in the uh in the beta so I'm very excited about that as Jimmy showed us we need an probably an open mouth and a closed mouth so that we can a test brilliant inside and you can look at David right you want me to pull closer or or no it'll just be you Mike yeah yeah and we can actually let's Samir you move the mic to the side yeah just move it fully off yeah fully off just move it off like that and then you'd have to imagine at some point these will be artificially generated right we can just give some assets yeah I mean that that's what I meant by the way in terms of like Creator tools like not every Creator is going to do that but that should be something that we should be able to yeah or give you like three generated on we probably need more than just AB yeah yeah we kind of need a ton of variations based on yeah but would you want to be making those choices across it's always a balance like it might be different for different creators but like how much burden of that choice do you want um ideally none it's the thing that keeps us up at night as thumbnail so it' be but by the way in terms of which one it chooses would you want to choose amongst 10 artificially generated no right like no as long as I felt they were representative of our brand I would be happy with it but would you want to have the last right of refusal on that yeah I would want to have guard rails you want to check that box Bally I would have guard rails to say like here's what I want in a thumbnail but then like I'm happy for you to choose it based on the user but you still want to be in the loop before it poses yeah keep me in the loop now like let me know yeah let me know what what shoot like just ping me and just be like is this one cool yeah it's good but there are there I'm sure there will be creators ultimately and who will say if I Define the guardrails yeah Off to the Races I think also if that you know the kind of AI assistant in the in studio gives me some of that and it's just like just recommend that's what I mean just recommends or just hey based on CTR let's go in this direction think about this that's super helpful because we are as creators we are riddled with self-doubt yeah we it's very hard for us to make those those confident choices and we will change it constantly and if that and we're all trying to figure out YouTube but it's an Ever moving Target yeah well now you guys know so many the you know like the algorithm people like you can talk directly to Todd we know you so we can straight to the source again you can just send the op product ideas out of this conversation I'm take these we'll text you thumbnail options know what you think just straight from the CEO actually go with this you'll be our a yeah we'll say look said this one's going to work [Music] so

Channel: Colin and Samir

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Id: vqM8hKlnhRY

Length: 56min 39sec (3399 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 09 2023