The Exchanges

Q So if I were to make the assumption that Trump utilized content creators better in the previous election, does the platform that houses most of the content creators get to sway What should be heard, since you control the narrative? Not the narrative, but who watches which narrative?

A Yeah, I really don't look at it that way at all. In fact, um, I really think that it goes back to what I was saying, which is YouTube really is a reflection of, of what is happening in the world. And precisely, it's actually meant to be a reflection of what's interesting to you in the moment. When you open up the YouTube app, It really should be a reflection of Nikhil's interests of the moment over some period of time. Uh, doesn't mean that it's just that. There's obviously, we endeavor to show a diversity of content, but it's generally oriented around what we know to be of your personal interest based on your viewing habits, et cetera. So you, as the user, really are in the driver's seat in terms of what type of content you're looking for, what you're looking to view, and it's the job of The content creators to be true to who they are, but then to use the YouTube platform to build an audience. And I say that, you know, YouTube in many ways is the, the, the, the most efficient way of connecting a creator like yourself with their audience wherever they are in the world. But it's, it's really just that. You are the one responsible for actually producing the content that's interesting to people. And I, as a fan of yours, Um, I'm only gonna watch it to the extent that I'm interested. And so that's fundamentally what happens on YouTube. And your question about what happened in the r…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I really don't look at it that way at all.”

Q I know it's tough to put YouTube in a box, but if you were to try and define what YouTube is today, what would you say it is?

A Um, um, that's a great question. I would say, um, I, I think we are, we are really our own thing, and what I, what I mean by that is, our ambition is to be a, a, a streaming service where you can Watch, create, and share video. Regardless of where you are in the world, who you are. Um, and that's our goal, that's our mission. And what I like about that is it really encapsulates everything from living room screens to television screens to, um, you know, your phone in your pocket, uh, to, you know, car radio, all that sort of stuff. We're not social media. We're not a place where you go To connect or share with your friends. You're primarily there to watch video. Um, and we're not sort of linear, traditional television either. Um, we're sort of our own thing because of the nature of the content that's created on our platform being a creator-led content generation platform.

AI assessment note: “a streaming service where you can Watch, create, and share video”

Q And if I were to go back to the fact that I'm speaking to entrepreneurs who want to use this platform to grow a business, can you give me five non-obvious insights about the world of content that I might not be able to find online?

A Yeah, uh, let me say a few things. First is, um, and I don't know if this is obvious or not, but I'll just, I'll say sort of the things that I, I, I think an up and coming entrepreneur would want to think about. One is, you know, places like YouTube, but other platforms also, um, have really eliminated the need or the, like, the fact of a barrier between you and your, Audience, or your customer, or however you think about it. Like, you are in the driver's seat, you get to control what that conversation looks like, and you get the feedback immediately. That's the second thing. It's like, as opposed to feedback that would happen in the traditional way, whether you were an entrepreneur and getting the feedback from the market six months down the road, or from your investors a year down the road, feedback on a place like YouTube is instantaneously. You literally see it in the comments within minutes of you. Seconds, minutes within you posting the video. So that's a world, ah, that you really, really have to be ready for. The third we talked about, um, which is true, ah, truly global, right? Like, so, um, you can have local, regional, national sort of ambitions, but, you know, content tends to be global. Storylines do translate. There are specifics, obviously, and Obviously culture matters a lot, um, but that's, that's kind of the, the, the, the third thing that I would say. One thi…

AI assessment note: “I'll say sort of the things that I think an up and coming entrepreneur would want”

Q What are you betting more on? Long form or shorts?

A I mean, I think I really view them as kind of a contin, I, I don't view them as two separate things, I guess, is what I would say. I, I think shorts sort of stands on its own in the sense in that it's like, it's vertical, it's shot on a mobile phone, maybe it gets consumed more in a feed, but all it is is it's just like, it's shorter video. It's like if you take, ah, put your head back to where YouTube was, we were just celebrating our 20th birthday, right? So go back to the very early days of YouTube, that, people call that shorts. That was shorts back then. And so it's just like, I think it's like a frame of reference thing. Um, and in our corpus we see Our long-form content, in many cases, growing even longer, um, getting more episodic in nature, as you're describing, uh, and we have, you know, short-form content that's 15 seconds, but we get, we get, uh, lots of asks for that short-form, short-form content to be over three minutes long. So, like, it's just like a, a, a continuum. And I think in terms of attention span, you know, I, you know, you can have a long session, Just consuming quote unquote short content, and vice versa. So I, I see it really, um, I kind of see it in, in, we see it in all, all different directions. I don't think there's a one, one or the other.

AI assessment note: “it's just like a continuum... I don't think there's a one, one or the other”

Q But you're talking about consuming something. I'm talking about you practicing something?

A Uh, well, I, um, I mean, I do try to practice those things. I'm not very good at them. So that's, ah, ah, in terms of my, my, my love of sports. But I'm highlighting it because, um, those are areas of, of passion of mine, and the way that I practice them is what I do every day. I think that YouTube is one of the few places that combines both those passions that I have, um, both technology as well as media. And so, you know, Did I stumble upon this? Probably. Like, I got lucky that I was given, given this opportunity, but those really are a place where I get to work on technology in service of, like, the thing that I really love.

AI assessment note: “I mean, I do try to practice those things. I'm not very good”

Q So building on that last thought, In the future, if you're competing with, say, Netflix for Mindshare, will you become more like Netflix, or will Netflix become more like YouTube?

A I mean, it's, it's, I, I think that our approach is going to be the approach that you've seen on YouTube. You should expect that same approach, ah, going into the future. Like I said, we produced a stage, we will be the leaders when it comes to technology, whether it's our investment in AI and the algorithm, In terms of how the product looks and feels, all the bells and whistles we build for creators, you should expect us to continue to do that, but it's going to be our creators that actually determine that sort of creative journey, where it goes. And I like that, because our creators are infinitely creative. There are, um, you know, a hundred million creators in India uploaded videos on YouTube. We have 15,000 creators in India, over a million subs. When I was here last, just a few months ago, ah, that number was, I think, 11,000. When I first started at YouTube, like, 10 years ago, that number was, like, four or five. So, just this proliferation of amazing content, amazing creativity is what, you know, is what YouTube is today, and that's what you should expect it to be five, 10 years from now, too.

AI assessment note: “our approach is going to be the approach that you've seen on YouTube.”