Name: Watch YouTube’s CEO Speak at Fortune’s MPW Summit
Uploaded: 2016-10-18
Duration: 19 min 44 s
Description: Susan Wojcicki sits down with Fortune’s Jennifer Reingold

[ SOUND ] I would just like to start with a couple statistics because when I was researching this interview I could not believe what I learned. YouTube has over one billion users, is that correct? Yes, monthly, monthly users. Monthly users, I missed that. That's almost one- third of all of the people on the Internet And you are now reaching more of the young, is it the 18 to 34 group in the U. S. than any TV network? Yeah. We're reaching more 18 to 49 year olds with mobile alone than any cable or broadcast network. So for those of you that perhaps don't have kids who are teenagers or don't like to learn how to do make up on your own, you need to know something. No one below the age of 20 is really spending time consuming the kind of media that we did. And Grace is one of the most significant stars, basically of this new media. She has over 3 million subscribers to her channel. Mm- hm Has a movie out that [ UNKNOWN ] mentioned. And, I will confess that until my kids told me about her, I had never heard of her. Well, I'm here. So, Susan, let me just go back to you for a second. You've been running YouTube for a few years now and I think when we once spoke about this, you said you saw this like Google was in the early days. Yes. And were you right about that or is it more? Yes, I Well, I, so I was at Google for, I've been at Google for 17 years and I joined it when it was really tiny and three years ago, I moved over to YouTube and when I came to YouTube, I really felt like I was almost going back in time because I saw that it was a smaller company. It was also on the edge of this really big change, and that really big change is Users changing the way that they view video, and so TV is probably one of the biggest markets, from ad, from subscription, from time spent, and if you look at the next generation, they are completely changing the way that they watch TV. They don't watch the TV as we knew it, they watch McGreys And all of [ UNKNOWN ] contemporary on their mobile phones. In their bedroom, probably. And it's completely different. And so I saw that opportunity with YouTube. And I think we're still at the beginning of it. And so I'm really excited to be leading YouTube when we make that transition. And one thing that's kind of cool here is that we have in some ways the new version of the talon in the studio, right? Is that a fair comparison to make here? And Grace, how do you feel about your studio? Are they treating you well? I love my studio very much. Please never kick me off the site. Absolutely the new kind of relationship. Because media itself is evolving constantly. It's going to be different when you leave this room than when you came in this room. And I can truly attest to the way that millennials for lack of a better term are consuming it is changing. I have had a talk show on E. Last spring, and it was a real experiment in would a digital audience consume a more traditional form of content. And the answer's kind of yes and no. People really value convenience over quality sometimes. And so YouTube being so readily available, and so personal and intimate It's something, I think, that attracts people to that content now, more than the traditional television show. And Susan, there's also been a lot of discussion about, what are the rights of the creators, versus the company? You take a percentage of the revenue from the advertising. I know you've made some changes to this. Tell me about how the relationship has evolved between the creators and And YouTube. Yeah. Well, first of all, we love our creators. We always say the creators are the lifeblood of YouTube, and I think the really interesting thing about, you talked about Grace and being on the studio, And I think the really interesting thing is this next generation of YouTube feeders, they're media companies. They're their own media company. They are the CEO, they are the personality, and behind them. And the marketers. As they get bigger, they have production and editors and writers and so we really have this next generation of media companies. We have a symbiotic relationship. We are a platform. Our goal is to create the world's best leading edge way to view video. However you want to watch video and so we love to work with content creators like Grace to distribute that video. And I think the relationship is getting better Our goal is to really invest in our creators and continue to make that really work across the board and grow all our creators. And so we're growing them in lots of different ways and, you know, we're seeing progress there. And Chris, you do though, I mean, as the brand, you can be in a lot of different platforms. I mean, you're not tied to YouTube per se, right? You have an Instagram presence. Yeah. That's the wonderful thing. It's a completely respectful relationship because there's so much creative freedom. It's the endless, infinite amount of creative freedom that makes the platform so special is that your authenticity and your ability to express yourself, However you feel is right is rewarded and is encouraged. And there's no gatekeepers, and that's what really drew me to it. And makes me feel like I don't think I'll be leaving it anytime soon. I started out. In traditional entertainment, auditioning for TV and movies and commercials. And the casting directors did not want to cast me in anything. But YouTube allowed me to upload anything that I wanted, and to reach a global audience that wasn't available to myself before that. So yeah, it's amazing how it evolves. And graces of really interesting story and it was described by one person as one of the most important events in the history of online video. She kind of had a prince- like experiences that's safe to say she was affiliated with one company and. Decided or learned basically that she didn't really control her own content. And so what did you do? Well, when I first started out, I was making YouTube videos the same way a lot of other content creators were making videos, as a fun hobby, not really understanding yet that it was In a platform for a career. And I was making them while I was auditioning and while I was doing comedy in New York City. And this website saw some of my videos and then brought me on to make videos for them five days a week from the comfort of my own apartment, which was extremely perfect. I was so excited about it, still not knowing that the digital space was That advantageous. I thought that this would just be my survival job, and I could quit waiting tables. And so started working for them. I made five videos a week, every week for two years straight, but only on their website and not on YouTube. And then we brought these series called Daily Grace over to YouTube, and for another two years I made five videos a week. From the comfort of my own home, all by myself. And that channel grew to about 2. 4 million subscribers. And in that time, I realized that unlike all the other content creators, I didn't own any of my content. I was still paid as an independent contractor, basically. How did you figure that out? I had a conversation with a friend, and she said, you're doing this wrong. And I said, no. [ LAUGH ] Thankfully I met this incredible agent at WME that was one of the first agents at the time that was putting time and energy into digital creators and saw the value there and he helped me try to renegotiate my contract with this company and they just wouldn't budge for a year. And the audience had no idea that I didn't own the content, I wasn't getting paid out for the views it was getting. It was all going to this company so I decided to leave that YouTube channel. You left your own channel? Yeah, I left my own channel and I started the channel that I am on now and I wasn't under contract allowed to let anyone know that was happening. I wasn't allowed to Tell the audience about the behind the scenes or the business, nor did I necessarily want them to know everything that was going on. But thankfully, because YouTube is an amazingly supportive community and a platform that's built on collaboration versus competition, all of my other content creator friends that were far more articulate than me and You know, much more supportive, wrote these blog posts like the Blog Brothers, John Green and Hank Green wrote these informative blog posts that got circulated around. And people started to really understand and see what was happening and it was amazing to see that the audience was subscribed to me as Grace Helvic and not Me, daily grace was theories. And you recouped all those subscribers and sort of rebuilt yourself. I did. Now you own yourself. Now I own myself. Which is amazing. [ CROSSTALK ] I am going to ask two questions from a couple people. I want questions from the audience, so please get ready. But I also would like to ask questions from a girl named Sabrina. Who maybe is my daughter. And Her friend Klan who lives in England and they met via YouTube actually so i asked them to ask questions so i have one for you Grace. Okay. Do you ever feel like your personality off camera isn't entertaining enough? That's the accidental crisis. I don't actually, and that's the thing that a lot of people wonder is Our creators online like themselves in person and I can say some are, some are slighty more reserved, and I think I am myself in person as I am online. I hope at least that I haven't completely lost myself in some fictitious character I've created for myself. Yeah, I hope that I am interesting offline. I hope I can answer that. I'll let them know. [ LAUGH ] And for Susan, why do you think that YouTube is so popular? I feel like you should ask your two little ones Because you could be famous. as I'm sure they would give you a good answer. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really popular for kids, and adults, I mean a billion people is a third of the people on the internet for a variety of reasons. And so, I think first, It's all the amazing content that we have. So if you are a teen, then you have a bunch of creators that you love, like Grace. And you can watch them, and interact with them, and communicate with them, and comment, and follow them. And actually feel like they're one of your really good friends. Or, you might also be in the category where maybe you don't know about the creators, but you still wanna Be able to learn something new and I think that's a really important news case for people who are looking up and learning whether it's a magic trick or like how to fix something in their house or there's There's so many things that are visual, and so being able to see that. And it's pretty amazing once we look across the globe of what people are learning on YouTube. I can attest that I learned how to open a bottle of wine with a shoe on YouTube. With a shoe? Yeah, it works. It works, that's when I knew the platform was important. [ LAUGH ] And that's an example of just all the diversity that we have on the content. Like who would Know or think that you would wanna- How many of you are gonna Google that right now? Yeah, I also think the mobile is a huge advantage. You know what? When I grew up, it was always the living room. Everyone was in the living room. And for years in tech, we used to talk about the living room. How are we gonna get into the living room? And then it suddenly occurred to me one day, wow, I am thinking A person from a different era. It's no longer wired and stuck on the wall, and you can take it anywhere you want. And so the majority of our viewing now is mobile, right? And so I'm sure your daughters like my kids love to watch In the privacy of your own home. If they chose, like, in their bedroom which, as a parent, is always a challenge, because it's harder to manage. But it gives them a lot more flexibility. So you can take it anywhere, it can be fully cross- device. It can be in the living room, but it can also be in your bedroom. And so I think the combination, the cross- diverse and the huge amount of content and the interactivity component that you can Hear from your creators and comment, and they'll sometimes write back, is really, really magical. Yep, questions? Mic handler here somewhere, anybody? [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Okay, I'm gonna ask a tough one. When is YouTube going to be profitable? well, right now we're investing in the platform. And we're investing a lot, because we see this big opportunity of the TV viewing still moving. And so just to put that into numbers. If you look at the 18 to 24 year old category, their viewership has gone down 40 % in terms of the number of hours of TV that they watch [ UNKNOWN ] Of regular TV. Of regular TV And your TV, the one on the wall. And so, we see this as an opportunity for us to continue to invest, and there's so many areas for us to invest in at the same time. We're investing in VR which has been a really exciting area. We're investing across the globe in all the emerging markets, We're investing in actually seeing YouTube on TVs, for example. So it sounds like no time soon. [ LAUGH ] Well, right now we're in investment mode. Okay, but no time table. No time table, no. Okay. Sorry. One more chance for questions. Right here. Can you wait for the mike? At the risk of totally revealing my ignorance this whole thing is fascinating to me but concept of creators and creating your own following. To what kind, what's the distribution of individuals watching You Tube versus B to B or is the platform for businesses to get their message out. And then will try to create That kind of a platform which is not anywhere near as ubiquitous as YouTube is. So what's the distribution of your users? Verses consumers and business? When we look at the billion users that come to YouTube every month You know we don't always know where their coming from, but we count them as like they're consumers. But I do think there is like a really interesting business case. And I'd say it's more of a business to consumer opportunity. And that's where we see a lot of that, I'll say the makeup videos right? Is a really interesting place, where people are talking about how do you apply the makeup? And then what are the products? Any kind of do- it- yourself type of projects at home. Again, as another opportunity. So, I mean, cars? I just bought a new car. All the cars have all the different features, there are videos of that. I think the business- to- consumer is a very important area. And in general our focus is as a consumer company To delivering great videos to consumers. One more question. This one right here. Yes. This is Kay [ UNKNOWN ]. I would like you to talk a little bit about VR and AR and what YouTube is learning, About those two intros into the marketplace because there's a tremendous momentum behind them on the technology side. And what do you learn so far from what you're saying? They are used on YouTube and they are. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think overall we're big believers in VR. We're big believers that It's a new medium. And it can create experiences that really take you to that place. To experience it in a way that you couldn't experience it on just a flat screen. And so, we've actually worked to take all the YouTube content to make that work in a VR capacity. But then we're filming content that's also native to VR as well. And. I mean, I think reality is like we're still learning what really works from a VR component because suddenly you need to film differently. And so you can't take the existing image. You need to rethink it, rewrite it, rescript it to make it really work. Work in a VR component, right? In a regular TV or movie, your users are just looking ahead. So you're not worried about your users like looking behind or looking to the side or looking up, and so the fact that they can get distracted in that way you need to completely redesign your scripts, It's a very different area, but we're big believers in it. I think there will be a lot more as the devices come down and they become a lot cheaper. As a camera technology, to be able to film will become even more important. And so I think the potential to change it from an entertainment standpoint is tremendous as well as from an educational component. One last quick question right here. What are the safeguards to keep the mean people out, the terrorists, bullies etc? What are the internal safeguards? And that is a great question. And I think hat is always a challenge when you have an open platform that platform can be available to all kinds of great creatures like Grace and all types of social activists. But yes sometimes That a challenge is gonna be on, getting with groups that are not using it with the best of intentions. So, there are a few things that we do. So first of all, we have a system. We have over 400 hours that are uploaded every minute to YouTube. So the way that we manage the content of Is, it gets flagged by a user and then it goes into a queue. And if we see anything that violates our guidelines. Anything that's promoting hate, anything that's promoting violence, Is it an algorithm? Adult content. So, a user will tag it. So, we have some content that we may look at on upload that might be an issue, but then if it's on the platform it gets flagged. We will have a user look at it, and then we will pull it down. And so we definitely try to enforce that as much as we possibly can. Or we enforce it as quickly as we possibly can. That's probably a better way to say it. Recently we just came up with this program, Creators for Change, because what we saw was that we really wanted to be able to. Take some of these harder issues that are on the Internet. Some of the xenophobia, some of the bullying, some of the hate speech, and find creators who are really tackling it head on. And so we found a number of them and we gave them this creator for change award, we gave them $ 1 million in equipment to be able to get that message even further. So I think it's a way of also elevating the voices that are promoting tolerance and promoting empathy so that the young people today are hearing that as well. So that's been a really really important priority for us. Great, and I think that is a lesson we all need to really reflect on, so that's a good way to end! Suzy and Grace thank you so much Thank you Thank you [ APPLAUSE ] [ SOUND ]

Susan Wojcicki sits down with Fortune’s Jennifer Reingold