Thank you. Thank you. It's really an honor. So, thank you very much.
Unfortunately, this conversation is your prize. Let's get into it.
Yeah, so we are in the news business here. So we're going to start with some news. And unfortunately, it's been a very, very dull period for media this last week. Neil, who is the better buyer for Warner Brothers Discovery, Netflix or Paramount?
Oh my goodness. You know, I don't know. I don't know. You tell me. You've been following.
I just asked the questions.
You know, I read what everybody else in this room reads on a regular basis. So there's nothing that I know or really anything that I think I can add to the discourse that's out there. And by the way, anything I say now might be outdated five minutes from now. So, leave it at that.
Fine. David Ellison is hinting that his acquisition would make Paramount competitive with YouTube. I think he means that as a compliment. Is he right?
You know, this is going to sound very, very clichéd. When we go to work at YouTube and you walk the halls of YouTube, we don't really think in terms of who the other streaming platforms are or the other feed platforms are. We really think, and hopefully the tables that I'm at today are a reflection of this, you will hear the term creator or creative person a hundred times a day in every single one of our meetings. And that's really the only thing that we think about, because our job is to not program the streaming service that we deliver. Our job is to actually build the stage on which the amazing creators and programmers do what they do every single day. And most of the people that work for me are technologists, because our job is to connect those amazing creative people with their audiences no matter where they are in the world. And that's really what we think about versus what's this competitor doing versus what this other competitor is doing.
You say that, but I'll keep asking. Five years from now, does YouTube look more like Netflix or Netflix like YouTube?
You know, I think YouTube, if I were predicting something, I would say that YouTube in its essence is going to continue to look a lot like it does today in the following sense. As you pointed out, every day two billion plus people all over the world come to YouTube to connect with their favorite creators, creative person, content, sports, movies, music, you name it. And in its essence, that's what YouTube is going to continue to be. Now, how it's consumed, how that content is getting created, that is going to be transformed by technology, which we can talk about, but that connectivity, the magic of YouTube, which is this open platform where if you have an idea, you're a creative person, nobody gets to tell you that you don't look the right way, you're the wrong gender, you're from the wrong part of the world. If you have something amazing to share, you can come on to YouTube and do that. And that won't change.
YouTube is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Time named you Person of the Year in 2006 in part inspired by YouTube's launch. By the way, the leading referral source to YouTube in 2006 was MySpace. How would you explain to, let's say, a MySpace visitor from 2006 what YouTube has become today?
You know, it's a few things, but in its essence, it is the way I would describe it, and the way it really becomes tangible for me is: it's the place where the cultural zeitgeist is set every single day. Regardless of where you are in the world, if you're a young person opening up your phone, whatever country that you're in, you're opening up to the cutting edge of culture. And that's what our artists, our musicians, our creators, our media partners are doing on YouTube every single day. And the creative canvas that they use to do that is what I think is ultimately truly profound about YouTube, which is if you have a story to tell, you can do it in a 15-second Short or a 15-minute sort of long-form video—which was the original short form 20 years ago when you talked about 2006—to a 15-hour live stream, and everything in between. And so that's in essence what YouTube is, and that's how I make sense of the 20 billion videos that are on our platform or the hundreds of hours of content uploaded every minute.
Does it bother you? You have some great creators here with you tonight. Does it bother you when they have success on platforms that are not YouTube?
The answer—and you can ask any of them sitting in the audience because they've heard this from me many, many times—the answer is no. And the reason is because what all of them tell me, and I don't think they're saying it because they're talking to the CEO of YouTube, I think they really believe it—they tell me that YouTube is their home. And so from my standpoint, as long as they recognize that aspect of it, then everything else that happens off of YouTube, whether it's a streaming deal with a particular streamer or selling chocolates or a particular pair of shoes that is derived from their success on YouTube—and these creators aren't just incredibly creative people, they're incredible entrepreneurs, too—and they recognize that. The example I often cite is our biggest creator, Mr. Beast. You go to his office, the first rule in his office is 'YouTube First.' There would be no Beast Games if there wasn't Mr. Beast on YouTube. And I think creators sort of really viscerally understand that. So their success off of YouTube, I think, just empowers them more and actually ultimately accrues to the success of their channels on YouTube.
But speaking of success, YouTube made a push this year to get creators nominated for Emmys, but they were ultimately shut out. Why do you think that is?
Well, I think you'd have to ask them. And what I would say there is it's sort of a two-way street. You know, if you ask a young person today—and I know everybody in this room has young people in their lives—chances are that the top five people that they name, if you ask them who sets the culture for you, who do you think about, who gets you excited, five out of ten of them are probably going to be YouTubers in some way. And so, and today over 50% of the consumption of YouTube in the US happens on television screens. So if you're a young person, when you turn on the TV, you're turning on YouTube. And so that's the reason why our creators tell us that they want to be recognized for that amazing work. They are, again, as I said, they're breaking through in terms of new formats, new types of creativity. And so, a creator that I work with, Kenny Dion, she says, 'I studied hard. I worked my butt off. I want the A.' And that's the recognition that they're looking for.
Do you think Hollywood has a problem with companies like you, too?
You know, personally, and obviously I spend a lot of time down there and I spend time with our partners down there. I think if you'd asked me this question ten years ago, I think there would be a lot of sort of question marks or raised eyebrows, like 'What is this UGC content? What is this raccoons high-fiving kind of thing?' And I think you fast-forward to today, and I don't think that question ever comes up anymore. Some of the biggest creators on our platform are our media company partners. Everybody talks about them and all the headlines this year have been around the negotiations between YouTube, around YouTube TV and carriage deals or what have you. But what gets lost is that some of those media partners operate dozens, if not hundreds, of channels on YouTube. They are some of the biggest creators on YouTube. They lean into it. They tell their stories. They have incredible IP and an enormous amount of the fandom around their properties happens on YouTube. And they know it. They tell me that all the time.
