Search Captions & Ask AI

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan on AI, Censorship & the Future of Creators

October 08, 2025 / 28:13

This episode features Neil Mohan, CEO of YouTube, discussing the platform's growth, monetization strategies, and the creator economy. Key topics include YouTube's revenue split, the importance of audience engagement, and the challenges of content moderation.

The conversation also touches on the role of YouTube in shaping culture and identity in a fragmented media landscape. Mohan highlights the significance of live events and how YouTube can create new 'water cooler moments' for audiences.

Finally, he shares insights on YouTube's product offerings, including YouTube TV and Premium, and their impact on user engagement and monetization.

TL;DR

Neil Mohan discusses YouTube's growth, monetization, content moderation, and the creator economy with insights on audience engagement and product offerings.

Video

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[Music]
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the man himself, CEO of YouTube.
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I didn't realize that when I took over
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the CEO gig, a big part of my job would
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be being a straight man. For a lot of
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YouTubers out there,
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YouTube is now by far the biggest
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streamer in the world.
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Shorts, I think, has just surpassed 70
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billion views a day.
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Mohan was one of the pioneers of
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internet advertising and keeping the
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world's largest creator economy afloat.
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We think we're really still in the early
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days of our growth story and fulfilling
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what our mission is, which is to give
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everyone a voice and show them the
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world.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
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YouTube CEO Neil Mohan.
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How are you? Good to see you, brother.
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Thanks.
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Nice to see you,
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David. How are you? Nice to see you.
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All right. Welcome, Neil.
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Neil
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and I could have done that together.
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I mean, you could have.
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What did you think? Um, we talked to him
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a little bit about which platform is the
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most important. He said the one that
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pays us the most. You don't pay for
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content upfront. You've done some
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experiments. You do it all with the 55%
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revenue split. You sweep 45%. Seems like
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you're doing pretty well. Are you taking
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too much money from creators?
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Let's get into it.
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Can we get that down to 30%?
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Um, well, first of all, thank you all
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for having me. It's a privilege to be
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with you guys. Like they say,
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uh, longtime listener, first- time
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caller. So, it's great to be here with
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all of you.
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Do you listen to the podcast? Yeah.
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Uh, I watch it.
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Oh, you watch it? Where do you watch it?
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Where did you you like Spotify?
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On YouTube?
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Oh, on YouTube. Yes, we're there now. We
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are there now. Yes.
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Can you please be prepared?
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Yes. Yes.
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I didn't know we had a YouTube channel.
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Really? How's it doing?
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How many folks watch it on watch it on
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YouTube? Just out of cur. There we go.
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All right. Okay.
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It's about half. Yeah,
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the channel is growing. You guys are
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close to a million subs, watch time,
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views, all up and to the right. So,
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congrats to congrats to all of you guys
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on that. But on your question, um, uh,
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Jason, so we we've paid out in the last
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3 years over $70 billion to the creator
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economy. We are the we are the original
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and world's largest creator economy. Um,
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and so,
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well done. And um that innovation which
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is called the YouTube partner program is
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well over a decade now. The the 5545
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that you're referring to. And um so we
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pay out billions to creators creators
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our media company partners the music
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partners etc. Uh I'm using that term
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creator and I'll use it for the la next
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30 minutes sort of in the broadest sense
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of the term. Um it's just that the way
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that we do it is very different. I mean,
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we're we're a creator economy in the in
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the true entrepreneurial sense of the
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word, which is if you're a creator on
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YouTube, um, contrasts to the
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traditional model, you're betting on
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yourself, which is, um, kind of the
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opposite of sort of the way that
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traditional media models have worked.
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And as you grow, as your audience grow,
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as your success grows, um, your
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monetization grows, your business grows
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as well. And not every creator on our
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platform is going to become, you know,
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Mr. Beast or Dude Perfect, but there
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are, you know, north of 3 million
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creators that are in that partner
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program today earning revenue.
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Back to my question, I feel like you've
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created all these stars and you look at
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the Tuckers, you look at the Megan's,
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you know, we'll put ourselves maybe
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right behind them. We all choose to turn
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off monetization because the take rate's
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too high and we can do it better
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ourselves. Should you not start to think
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about two classes of folks? The
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upandcomers who don't have sales teams,
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who don't have distributions, maybe
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it's, you know, it's more about building
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an audience and then maybe looking at
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the folks like us slightly differently.
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And this seems to be a weakness in your
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game. Um, your take?
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Um, I would I would say that, you know,
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the way I think about he doesn't speak
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for us just
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for myself. No, but the point is
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I just want to be clear that I love you.
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No, no, but it's clear that people who
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are at this level take it on themselves
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because the 45% is just an absurdly high
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take rate for that level of person, the
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Tuckers, the Megan, they'd rather just
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bake their ads in. So, how do you think
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about that level of folks? They
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participate, but you don't monetize
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them.
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I think that that's um that's not the
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way I would characterize it. First of
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all, I think the the the way that I
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think about it is all of these
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monetization models should be available
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to you depending on what your business
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objectives are and what they're not. And
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I've talked to a bunch of you guys about
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sort of how you think about that
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monetization question and what's
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important versus audience building and
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not. And by the way, it's the same type
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of conversation that happens with sports
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leagues or studios or what have you
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there. And so my my vision on all of
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this is whatever model works for you as
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a creator podcast or what have you
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should be the model that you adopt. And
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so for example, you take um you know
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what Tucker's doing and Megan's doing
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and they you know they have had enormous
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success on our platform um mostly driven
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because they're incredibly talented at
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what they do and the audience and the
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algorithm have figured that out. But it
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might be that the monetization model
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that works best is something where
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they're representing their inventory
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themselves. And that I think is less
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about sort of take rate or what have
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you, but sort of the best way to
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actually package it up. And so that's
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that's really the way that I think about
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it. But if you're a creator getting
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started today, you're not even concerned
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with that at all because the the
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monetization is really only a byproduct
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of what you've been able to do from an
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audience engagement standoint.
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The net is what matters, right? At the
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end of the day.
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That's my point. Yeah, take rates 55,
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20, 90. If you're making more money
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doing this than other things,
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I mean, a great example again just
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because the algorith and maybe you can
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speak to the the quality of the
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algorithm and the ads placement. You
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come from the ads business. You're a
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double click.
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Yeah.
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How good YouTube's ad placement and ad
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quality is relative to other platforms
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and how that actually increases.
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Yeah. I mean, I think I think what I'd
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say on that is it's it's really it's two
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things. One is, you know, obviously we
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invest very heavily in making it so that
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the advertising you see, whether you're
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watching YouTube on a television screen
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or on your phones or or your laptops is
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relevant. It's targeted. The creative
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formats are there. We are a platform
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that caters to advertisers that are
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brand advertisers, brand builders as
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well as, you know, direct response. And
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so that is a big area of investment. But
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the reason why from and I spend a lot of
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time talking to advertisers why they're
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all so excited about the ROI is that uh
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the the engagement is differentiated and
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that turns into ROI for advertisers. And
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what I mean by that is if you go to
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YouTube, you are really leaned in into
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what you're watching. You are a Mr.
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Beast superfan. You're a, you know,
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Michelle Kari superfan. You are a name
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your favorite creator super fan. And
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that is a different type of engagement
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that actually translates into different
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ROI regardless of where your objectives
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are in the marketing funnel. And that's
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that's our secret sauce. That's where
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that's where this $70 billion that we
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pay out to the creator economy and all
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these, you know, hundreds of thousands
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of jobs that we create in the creator
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ecosystem on a daily basis come from.
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Let me uh just uplevel this in a more
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general question. 10 years ago, 15 years
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ago, the cable channels and you know,
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the way that we consumed content was
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largely live. You know, we would tune in
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for shows and one of the byproducts of
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that was national culture, right? There
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would be these things that would enter
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the zeitgeist and you we'd all talk
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about it and we would be unified by it.
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And on the plus side of all of this
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infinite distribution is you get to
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watch what you want. The downside of it
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is there's really no connective thread
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almost that we all talk about that's the
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same. Um, how does YouTube view that
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problem? Is it a problem? Like is there
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a responsibility or are there things
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that you can do to kind of make things
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that are a little bit less on demand, a
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little bit more,
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you know, appointment viewing that kind
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of builds identity and culture? Yeah, I
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think it's I think it's a really
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interesting question and again, you
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know, the
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one of the consequences of what you're
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talking about visav the algorithm or
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what have you is, you know, you you guys
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open up your phones right now, that
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YouTube feed of yours is going to look
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like you, right? Like it really is about
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what you're genuinely interested in and
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and watching. And that does lead to it
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can lead to that type of that
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fragmentation that you're describing.
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Having said that, you know, if you ask
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um you know, someone a Gen Z or you
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know, a millennial sort of what were the
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top four or five sort of really big sort
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of breakout pop culture trends. A lot of
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them are actually an aggregation of a
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lot of these types of things and you
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know um they they could be trends that
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might be not the most relevant to all of
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us or this audience, but they are for a
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particular sort of age group. And so we
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do so the answer is that we do see a lot
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of those sort of national and in many
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cases because YouTube's a global
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platform two billion people come to it
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every single day there's enough
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aggregation even amongst these sort of
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niche areas where you do see some of
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that. The other thing that I will say
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about about um sort of how I think about
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it is I do think that um live and sort
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of like those water cooler type moments
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are really important. you saw uh you
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know you saw the biggest one of those
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happen on YouTube just two days ago. Um
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that Brazil game that Ari was mentioning
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was on YouTube. Yeah.
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And the reason why it was such such a
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success I would argue is because of that
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aperture what YouTube can obviously do
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from a reach standpoint. But the other
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reason and to the NFL's credit was you
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guys saw how relevant we were trying to
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make it for kind of this YouTube
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generation. And again, you obviously saw
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the integration with things like
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Destroying and Mr. Beast in the actual
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live stream of the game itself, but that
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sort of creator engagement through the
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lens of creators is something that
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sports leagues are leading to, which is
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sort of like what I describe as a new
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water cooler moment.
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What percent of watched media minutes do
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you guys have? Do you think if you look
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at all media broadcast movies?
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I mean, you guys know we're we're we're
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the number one streaming platform here
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in the US. So I think the latest
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Neielson's number was and we've been the
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number one streamer in the US here for 2
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years and I think the number the latest
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Neielson number was I think something
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about about roughly about 13 13 14% of
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the of the TV watching audience. Um uh
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but remember that number doesn't include
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YouTube on mobile uh and so it's a
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television number.
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But to Ari's point do you see that
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growing? Are people spending more time
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consuming media because it's more
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personalized, it's more engaging, and
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they're finding perhaps more free time?
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I mean, I I do I mean, look, our numbers
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are growing. I think other streaming
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platforms are growing. Other, you know,
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mobile platforms are growing. I think if
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you look at sort of the totality of sort
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of human time, it's still sort of a
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relatively, you know, small portion of
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that. Um, yeah.
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Let me shift gears um to a different
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topic for a second. I think during co
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there's a real sense that the censorship
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was out of control on social media, not
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just YouTube but Twitter, Facebook, all
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of them. Uh if you question the efficacy
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of vaccines or social distancing or even
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on topics like the trans agenda or even
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uh climate change, there was a risk that
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you could be censored or shadowbanned or
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demonetized. It feels like we've the
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industry's kind of pulled back from that
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and um things have opened up again and a
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lot of that's I think due to what Elon
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did in terms of um buying Twitter and
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opening things back up. I guess my
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question is has the industry actually
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learned from that or is censorship just
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on pause during the Trump years.
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There's another fast get into it. Right.
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I like it. That's why
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Good question.
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It's a great question. Yeah. Yeah, you
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know, I I think that actually I'll just
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say a couple things about that and one
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of them will sound it's it's sort of
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actually connecting the the dots between
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the questions that you guys asked, which
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is, you know, the way I answered David's
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Dave's question is um
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first of all, I think a lot of these
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plat all of these platforms are are
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actually pretty different, right? Like
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what Twitter does is different than what
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you know, some of the meta platforms do,
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which of course is very different than
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what YouTube does. And you could argue
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um as witnessed from the rest of this
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conversation that we probably have a lot
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more similarity with you know a
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streaming platform than we do with a
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social media platform. So that that's
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one point but I think it's an important
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context into what I'm about to say. And
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the reason I say that is because you
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know 99% of what happens on YouTube is
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all the creators that I talked about all
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the podcasters you know the Taylor
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Swifts of the world all the music.
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Obviously music is our largest and you
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know most important vertical for example
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we're a music platform so that that is
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like even during co that is where a lot
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of the watch time on YouTube versus a
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discourse that might be happening in a
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social feed somewhere. Um that doesn't
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mean that we don't have comments on our
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videos and all that sort of piece which
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is where some of this you know discourse
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that you're alluding to David might have
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happened. Um I I do think yeah I so I
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think that at the highest level I do
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think that there is something about the
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fact that that was a very different
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time. I remember kind of March, April of
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2020 where like oh my god like do you
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get this this way or is it this way or
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mask or this or I mean I literally woke
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up one day and there were like people
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climbing uh 5G cell towers and falling
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from cell towers because now it was like
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you could literally get the thing from
00:14:03
cell towers. It sounds cell towers but
00:14:05
it sounds crazy uh today but that was
00:14:07
the nature of sort of the types of
00:14:09
things that were popping up.
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So some lessons learned or regrets
00:14:11
there. Let me let me just finish. So So
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that that's the context in which you
00:14:17
know we were having to sort of make some
00:14:19
of these decisions. Fast forward to
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today like obviously in a completely
00:14:23
different world but just in terms of the
00:14:25
nature of the disease and all that sort
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of a thing. So all of those sort of
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policies that existed back then are
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non-existent today. And it's my way of
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answering your question of like well is
00:14:37
it a temporal thing or not? I would
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argue that a lot of these sort of like
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and by the way YouTube in particular was
00:14:45
ex was was criticized to an extreme
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amount because of all the content that
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we left up on the platform around you
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know the Wuhan virus controversy around
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like you know whatever um all sorts of
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other things that we were leaving up
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that other places were were acting
00:15:01
differently on and so we got beat up a
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lot sort of from one side of the
00:15:06
spectrum then Um, and I think that our
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approach really just has to be
00:15:13
flexible to the environment in the
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context of it. I think we're always
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going to get criticized by being an open
00:15:19
platform. There's a lot of magic that
00:15:21
happens because of the open platform.
00:15:23
All these amazing creators wouldn't
00:15:24
exist if we didn't have an open platform
00:15:26
and we didn't stand for for free speech.
00:15:29
But there's also a lot of
00:15:31
Hold I want to follow up on this if I
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may. There there are two categories that
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I um I have in my feed because of the
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algorithm. firearms and uh poker. Both
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of those groups of creators are um a
00:15:42
little bit up in arms uh no pun intended
00:15:44
because they are being demonetized. So,
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how do you make a decision on who's
00:15:48
allowed to earn and who's not allowed to
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earn uh and be part of the ad network?
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Poker folks and people who do firearm
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safety and and firearm training uh and
00:15:59
best practices, they're demonetized um
00:16:02
and they're complaining about it now.
00:16:03
How do you make those kind of decisions?
00:16:05
Um, a lot of them are incredibly
00:16:08
successful creators on our platform,
00:16:09
Jason,
00:16:10
but not monetized.
00:16:11
No, some of them are monetized as well.
00:16:14
So, we we do have a clear set of rules
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and we've had these for a long time in
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terms of sales of firearms and those
00:16:20
types of things. And obviously, there's
00:16:22
there's legal frameworks and all those
00:16:24
types of things around it. But I think,
00:16:26
you know, in terms of
00:16:29
firearms community and learning about
00:16:31
firearms and safety, which obviously is
00:16:33
an important thing, especially for for
00:16:34
young people, um we're one of the
00:16:37
largest places where those audiences
00:16:39
exist, as well as monetization of that
00:16:41
type of content. Now the balance and you
00:16:44
know obviously and some of this comes
00:16:45
from um you know experts that we've
00:16:47
worked with in that vertical itself
00:16:50
around something might be appropriate
00:16:52
for an adult user of that type of
00:16:55
content that may not be appropriate for
00:16:56
a child and those types of things. So
00:16:58
there's a lot of nuance behind it, but
00:17:00
the
00:17:00
poker I don't I mean are we like there's
00:17:03
probably something around
00:17:05
sports gambling legality and all that
00:17:07
sort of stuff but generally speaking as
00:17:09
you guys know
00:17:10
there's an enormous amount of poker
00:17:11
content that's incredibly successful in
00:17:13
our platform is back to what Chimath was
00:17:15
saying which is like whatever niche
00:17:17
there is out there however big or
00:17:19
however small you're going to find a set
00:17:21
of creators that are just as passionate
00:17:23
about it as as you are. I think the
00:17:25
interesting question is how do you
00:17:26
organize yourself across all the
00:17:29
different countries in you're in and the
00:17:30
scale that you're at to deal with the
00:17:32
cultural nuances of every different
00:17:34
country and then to deal with the laws
00:17:36
of every different country and then to
00:17:38
deal as David said sometimes the
00:17:40
vicissitudes
00:17:41
of social policy in every country. How
00:17:43
do you deal with that organizationally?
00:17:45
Like what does that actually look like?
00:17:47
Yeah, it's the part that turns my hair
00:17:49
hair white. But uh look I think part of
00:17:51
it I say this to my team all the time
00:17:53
which is
00:17:55
it is a challenge right because we but I
00:17:58
think it's a challenge that honestly
00:18:00
like I view it as a bit of a privilege
00:18:04
in the sense that it wouldn't be
00:18:07
important if we weren't such an
00:18:09
important place especially for young
00:18:11
people to uh connect get information
00:18:15
entertain themselves learning we're the
00:18:17
largest learning platform uh in the
00:18:19
world. We know that obviously um just
00:18:22
given all the use cases and the watch
00:18:24
time etc. And so
00:18:27
at least from my standpoint I try to be
00:18:29
as global as we possibly can in terms of
00:18:31
principles. You know one of the things
00:18:33
that I always say about um YouTube is
00:18:36
like you know our northstar principle
00:18:38
and you know uh has always been um give
00:18:42
everyone a voice and show them the
00:18:43
world. That's our mission statement. Uh
00:18:45
it stands for freedom of expression,
00:18:47
freedom of speech. We are, you know, an
00:18:50
American company and that that notion
00:18:52
that sort of value of freedom of spee
00:18:55
speech is core to our ethos and we
00:18:58
really do try to start with that as a
00:19:00
global position. Having said that,
00:19:03
you're right like there is an enormous
00:19:05
patchwork of legislation and regulation
00:19:08
that exists in every country.
00:19:09
Are there people that are writing
00:19:10
policies that then some folks just have
00:19:12
to understand and they're manually
00:19:14
trying to react to here's how we deal
00:19:16
with this issue in India. here's how we
00:19:18
deal with this issue in Brazil. Here's
00:19:19
how we deal with it in France.
00:19:21
Yeah. I mean, look, the answer is um
00:19:22
or is it algorithmic or is it a
00:19:24
combination?
00:19:24
It's it's always some combination
00:19:26
because you know the scale of YouTube is
00:19:29
you know hundreds of hours of content is
00:19:31
uploaded to YouTube every single minute
00:19:33
of every single day. Um we want to be um
00:19:38
as core to that north star as possible.
00:19:40
You know, frankly, there's there's
00:19:42
situations where we have to push back on
00:19:45
that that core uh push back on sort of
00:19:48
what might be um an encroachment on that
00:19:52
sort of a principle. Having said that,
00:19:54
we also of course, you know, have to
00:19:56
legally operate in all of these
00:19:58
countries just like any other platform.
00:19:59
There's three products, Neil, I'm super
00:20:01
obsessed with and I just would love to
00:20:03
get your your take on them in terms of
00:20:04
priorities for you. YouTube TV,
00:20:07
unbelievable.
00:20:08
Unbelievable. YouTube Red.
00:20:10
That is a great product.
00:20:11
Uh YouTube Red, which I think is YouTube
00:20:12
Premium taking the ads off.
00:20:14
Unbelievable. And then I think a sleeper
00:20:16
is you've kind of built in Patreon like
00:20:19
functionality subscriptions. So maybe
00:20:21
you can walk us through the footprint of
00:20:22
each of those and the prioritization of
00:20:24
those because they do seem to have had a
00:20:26
a significant impact on engagement and
00:20:29
how people look at the platform.
00:20:31
Yeah. No, and I'm super proud of all
00:20:33
three of those products. as a product
00:20:34
guy myself, like that's that's the fun
00:20:37
part of the job is actually building all
00:20:39
of these amazing products and um uh you
00:20:43
know the the their origin story on
00:20:45
YouTube TV. I I'm a sports nut. I'm like
00:20:47
I'm and actually the the people on my
00:20:50
team, a lot of them who've been involved
00:20:51
with YouTube TV since the very early
00:20:53
days are also big sports guys and I'm
00:20:55
also a news junkie and that's the core
00:20:58
use case of YouTube TV in many ways. if
00:21:00
you think about sort of the the features
00:21:01
that we built, multiv- view, key plays,
00:21:04
even some of the fantasy integrations
00:21:05
that you see. So, that's the lens
00:21:07
through which you should think about how
00:21:09
we're going to continue to develop that
00:21:11
product. Uh, and the thought and the
00:21:13
question I would always get is like,
00:21:14
well, why are you guys doing this? Like,
00:21:16
look at what's happening to that part of
00:21:18
the the the the paid ecosystem, right?
00:21:20
Like, why are you diving into this thing
00:21:23
that's like this sort of like, you know,
00:21:24
shrinking shrinking thing? And our
00:21:26
thought was like, well, a lot of it has
00:21:28
to do with the fact that like
00:21:31
reinventing that whole experience from
00:21:33
the standpoint of a fan or a consumer.
00:21:35
And so that's the YouTube TV um origin
00:21:39
and sort of where it's going. The one
00:21:40
thing that you should, you know, pay
00:21:42
attention to is um something that we
00:21:46
call prime time channels in YouTube,
00:21:48
which is
00:21:50
a lot of those same sort of linear
00:21:52
channels or sort of traditional media
00:21:54
channels, but that you can buy all a
00:21:55
cart in the main YouTube app.
00:21:57
Uh and so that that there's connectivity
00:22:00
between those two products.
00:22:01
Yeah, I was wondering when that would
00:22:02
happen because for me it's just CNBC. I
00:22:04
want to have it inside of YouTube, but I
00:22:06
have to load it. And then when I travel,
00:22:08
it's always like, "Oh, what region are
00:22:10
you in?" Premium, how many premium
00:22:12
subscribers are there now? How is that
00:22:14
growing? How does that affect the ad
00:22:15
business? Because for me, the ads are
00:22:18
death. I just I need my time back. So,
00:22:20
how do you think about that?
00:22:22
Yeah. Um I do think that for our
00:22:24
business um advertising is going to
00:22:27
remain ha is today and will remain the
00:22:30
predominant way through which we
00:22:32
monetize on behalf of creators. That 70
00:22:34
billion number that I mentioned most of
00:22:36
it comes from ads and the reason is
00:22:38
because you know at at a fundamental
00:22:40
level we are a platform of scale two
00:22:43
billion two billion people come to it
00:22:45
every single day. Having said that, like
00:22:48
giving consumer choice, you know,
00:22:50
uninterrupted experience uh is
00:22:52
important. There's about 125 million uh
00:22:54
subscribers
00:22:56
um 25 million
00:22:58
pay uh YouTube premium.
00:22:59
Amazing.
00:23:00
How does that money get split with the
00:23:02
creators? So, if I'm watching Mr. Beast
00:23:03
without ads, how do you
00:23:04
There there's there's a kind of roughly
00:23:07
sort of engagement watchtime type
00:23:09
calculation.
00:23:09
Is TV basically the biggest cable
00:23:12
subscriber base equivalent?
00:23:15
Are we are you um you know
00:23:17
where do you guys rank in cable
00:23:18
subscribers?
00:23:19
Actually, you know, it's interesting the
00:23:20
way that even the way you guys are
00:23:21
talking about it is like well that's
00:23:23
like your uninterrupted sort of TV
00:23:25
subscription tier, which is how I think
00:23:27
lots of people think about it.
00:23:28
The origin uh of YouTube Premium was
00:23:32
actually a music premium music
00:23:33
subscription service, right? It was like
00:23:35
called YouTube Music and Premium. And so
00:23:37
a lot of those 125 million subs are not
00:23:40
just people who are watching it just the
00:23:41
way that they would watch like you know
00:23:43
Netflix or Amazon without ads. There's a
00:23:46
lot of that but a lot of it is just
00:23:47
actually music fans too. Like people who
00:23:50
for whom their music service is actually
00:23:52
Spotify is YouTube right? Like where
00:23:53
they discover music where they listen to
00:23:55
you know watch their favorite videos is
00:23:57
YouTube. So how do you have like a
00:23:59
uninterrupted music service
00:24:01
when you have all these incredible AI
00:24:03
models all over the place? People will
00:24:05
be generating all kinds of content. Some
00:24:07
of that content could be news content,
00:24:08
topical content. You know, it could talk
00:24:11
about a vaccine. It could talk about
00:24:12
whatever. Do you guys feel you have a
00:24:15
responsibility to figure out whether
00:24:16
that's real or not? Do you think that's
00:24:18
the role of the actual creators? Do you
00:24:20
think it should be, you know, the CDC
00:24:22
should have a YouTube channel where they
00:24:23
watermark the stuff that they put out?
00:24:25
And then so like whose responsibility is
00:24:27
this going to be?
00:24:28
Yeah, I think
00:24:29
and how much of it is our responsibility
00:24:31
as a consumer? I mean, look, I think
00:24:33
that, um, here's how I think about it.
00:24:37
First, um,
00:24:41
with the growth of these AI enablement
00:24:44
tools, um, you're going to see that like
00:24:47
the distinction between like was it
00:24:49
completely AI generated, was it AI
00:24:51
assisted, etc. is going to be a
00:24:52
continuum. So, that's that's the first
00:24:54
piece. Um, and we're already seeing
00:24:57
that. We see that on YouTube obviously.
00:24:59
you know, you open up the YouTube app,
00:25:00
you hit that plus button, um you can
00:25:02
type in a text prompt and it will
00:25:04
generate a video for you using our VO
00:25:06
models, right? Um so that that is
00:25:08
already happening. One of the things
00:25:10
that we do um is um there is a label
00:25:15
that says that you know you know # AI
00:25:17
generated and um we will put that sort
00:25:19
we call it sort of front of the box. We
00:25:21
will literally put that on the video and
00:25:23
in some cases usually it's in the
00:25:25
metadata. Um that's obviously not
00:25:27
foolproof. Um, but I I think the way at
00:25:31
least from a principal standpoint, the
00:25:34
way I think about it is, you know,
00:25:36
YouTube has these, you know, community
00:25:38
guidelines. We try to be transparent
00:25:40
about them. We publish them on our
00:25:42
website. And I think that sort of like a
00:25:44
a priory distinction between, well, it
00:25:47
was AI generated, therefore it must be
00:25:49
violative versus not actually is not the
00:25:52
way to do it. Um, and it's really just
00:25:54
about giving as much transparency to the
00:25:56
users as possible.
00:25:58
Um, and then the other thing that's
00:26:00
really important is in the creator
00:26:02
business, in the creativ creativity
00:26:05
business, whether you're a Hollywood
00:26:08
celebrity or a YouTuber or or an artist,
00:26:11
the the thing that I hear over and over
00:26:13
that they really care about is their
00:26:15
likeness. And so if you're Taylor Swift,
00:26:18
it's your voice. If it's if you're, you
00:26:21
know, Marquez Brownley, it is your face
00:26:23
like your live. It's your
00:26:24
No, I mean it's there are people doing
00:26:27
live chimoth things to give Bitcoin away
00:26:29
and I send it to him and I report it
00:26:30
sometime.
00:26:31
I send it to Neil. I send it to Neil and
00:26:33
I'll tell you the AI slop issue is
00:26:35
getting bad.
00:26:35
Send it to me directly instead of
00:26:37
tagging me. Um the the
00:26:39
no the issue really is like um I'm a
00:26:43
Corvette fan and um the the incentive is
00:26:47
so perverse I've had to ban a bunch of
00:26:49
these channels that show me thumbnails
00:26:52
of this is the new Corvette, this is the
00:26:53
new prototype and it's AI slop and it's
00:26:57
obvious what they're doing is they're
00:26:58
trying to insert themselves into the
00:27:00
algorithm and then I just ban them. So
00:27:01
you do give control, but I do think
00:27:04
really labeling them is import I don't
00:27:05
want to put the burden on you to do
00:27:07
that. I think the labeling is one piece
00:27:08
but the the thing that I was going to
00:27:10
say is the other thing and we have a
00:27:11
track record of content ID which is
00:27:13
basically the rights management system
00:27:15
that you could argue basically created
00:27:17
that whole creator economy in the first
00:27:18
place YouTube success. It saved YouTube.
00:27:21
So content ID is think about that
00:27:24
metaphor as it applies to AI. Yeah.
00:27:27
Wonderful. So we are working on this
00:27:28
notion of I call it sort of likeness
00:27:31
detection where if it's a chimoth face
00:27:36
um the algorithm should be good enough
00:27:38
to actually detect that and then give
00:27:40
you a choice as to whether that should
00:27:42
come down
00:27:42
right
00:27:43
is that does that come down or you know
00:27:45
there might be some creators that choose
00:27:46
to monetize it and give so giving
00:27:48
creator we can take ownership of it
00:27:50
you can take ownership of it
00:27:51
so people take our clips make versions
00:27:53
of us as dogs or
00:27:54
and it for us it's not just words we
00:27:56
actually have a tracker record of doing
00:27:58
that because of something like content
00:27:59
ID.
00:28:00
Ladies and gentlemen, Neil Mo,
00:28:04
thanks for being here. Thanks, brother.
00:28:05
Appreciate it.
00:28:07
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Episode Highlights

  • YouTube's Growth Story
    Neil Mohan discusses YouTube's rapid growth and its impact on creators.
    “We think we're really still in the early days of our growth story.”
    @ 00m 27s
    October 08, 2025
  • $70 Billion to Creators
    YouTube has paid out over $70 billion to the creator economy in the last three years.
    “We've paid out in the last 3 years over $70 billion to the creator economy.”
    @ 02m 07s
    October 08, 2025
  • The Importance of Engagement
    Neil Mohan explains how YouTube's engagement translates into ROI for advertisers.
    “You are really leaned in into what you're watching.”
    @ 06m 55s
    October 08, 2025
  • Freedom of Speech
    Freedom of speech is a fundamental value for the company, shaping its global position.
    “Freedom of speech is core to our ethos.”
    @ 18m 47s
    October 08, 2025
  • YouTube Products
    The speaker expresses pride in YouTube TV, YouTube Red, and subscription functionalities.
    “I'm super proud of all three of those products.”
    @ 20m 31s
    October 08, 2025
  • Monetization Strategy
    Advertising remains the primary monetization method for creators on YouTube.
    “Advertising is going to remain the predominant way through which we monetize.”
    @ 22m 24s
    October 08, 2025
  • Creator Likeness
    Creators deeply care about their likeness and how it's represented online.
    “The thing that I hear over and over is their likeness.”
    @ 26m 15s
    October 08, 2025
  • AI Content Issues
    The speaker discusses the challenges of AI-generated content and its impact on creators.
    “The incentive is so perverse I've had to ban a bunch of these channels.”
    @ 26m 47s
    October 08, 2025

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Creator Economy02:12
  • Engagement Matters06:55
  • Censorship Discussion11:30
  • Freedom of Speech18:47
  • YouTube Products20:31
  • Monetization Strategy22:24
  • Creator Likeness26:15
  • AI Content Issues26:47

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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