Susan Wojcicki

video network. Since the very first YouTube video was uploaded sixteen years ago, YouTube has exploded to more than two billion users in the farthest corners of the planet, now raking in billions of dollars every year. It's evolved a long way from cat videos to become a one click journey to the center of the zeitgeist, pop culture and kid culture, amplifying some of the brightest and sometimes darkest

traits in all of us. While YouTube has elevated a generation of creators and educated and entertained generations of viewers, it's fought misinformation, terrorism, racism, and violence many clicks along the way. Lately, YouTube's biggest battles are focused on eliminating COVID and vaccine misinformation and keeping the platform safe for

kids and teens. On this edition of the Bloomberg Studio One Point podcast, will rewind to talk about where YouTube has been and fast forward to where it's going next, with one of the longest tenured employees and women at Google and the CEO of YouTube, Susan wijet Ski. Susan, it's so great to talk to you again. Thank you for having me. It's been five years since we last talked on camera, and we have a new president, we

are weathering a pandemic. The most watch video on YouTube is baby Shark, Baby Shark, So a lot has changed since. How do you feel about YouTube? Ver? I feel good about it. Um, It's definitely been a while, and in technology, things moved so quickly, so a lot of things have changed since. And UM, I mean overall, I've been really pleased that we have continued to grow and grow our ecosystem of creators. UM. We've invested a lot in responsibility and UM that's been a really big focus for us.

UM And you know, with weather through a pandemic and a lot of hard challenges. But overall, I'm feeling really good. You've been at Google for twenty plus years, going all the way back to Larry AND's are gay in the garage. You've been the CEO of YouTube for seven plus years. How has your job changed in that time since I joined being the CEO of YouTube? I would say one of the biggest things that has changed certainly has just been maybe the recognition of the importance of digital video.

So when I first joined, actually a lot of people would say, oh, like, why did you join um UM. I was running ads beforehand and that was That's been the in way Google generates revenue, and so a lot of people said, like, why did you leave that and go to YouTube? But I always believed in digital video and I believe that now we see that the world also believes. We've seen a lot of adoption of digital video and the benefits that that can have. You've championed

this diversification strategy at YouTube since you started. What's working and what's not working well. Our main way of generating revenue is from advertising, um, but we also have really grown our subscription revenue, and um that has been really really important from many different reasons. So that has enabled our users to have experience where they can have music, YouTube music and premium. We just announced the fifty million subscribers that we were really excited about UM. But we

also see other ways that our creators generate revenue. So our creators, for example, generate revenue with channel subscriptions, they may sell merchandise. UM. We also have things like UM digital goods, so like UM super chat, um, super Thanks, and so we've basically diversified the number of ways that that our ecosystem is generating revenue. The original tagline for YouTube was broadcast yourself, and that concept has exploded. We

have ordinary people in the spotlight. When they grow up, they want to be an influencer, they want to be a YouTube star or a YouTube creator. What do you see as the future of the creator economy. I see a lot of possibility with the creator economy, and because I see that many people have a lot of interest and they have a lot to offer, and beforehand they went up been able to have shared shared that with

the world. And so there's so many people depending upon what their talent or their interest is, whether it's a sport or cooking or gaming or hairstyles, that people have come out and really been able to share that and create a lot of jobs. UM. So we actually see like our we actually saw thirty percent increase in the number of creators that are generating UM six figure income out of YouTube and in the last year. And so that's just an example of how the creator economy is

continuing to grow well. And for years YouTube was the only company that actually paid creators, but now a lot of companies are paying creators, Facebook and Instagram, snap TikTok. How do you see that competition playing out? Who wins well? It is a competitive landscape and in general, competition is good. It makes everyone work harder and that's good. Um. I mean, we look at creators and we say they're going to

come to us if we do the best job. And creators come to us looking basically for fame and fortune, like how can I have a skill or I have a talent um something I want to share with the world like, and YouTube can help that be known, can help them provide that fame, but also we can generate revenue for them. Um. And so as long as we're doing a good job of that creator who are going to come to us, if we start to fail, then they're going to leave us and they're going to go

to another platform. And so we just need to work really hard to make sure that we deliver that for our creators. A year ago, during the Black Lives Matter protest, YouTube made big commitments to black creators in particular. What's been the progress there and how do you see YouTube the potential for YouTube to be used as a tool for social justice. Well, so we've made an announcement that we were going to do a hundred million dollar Black

Voices fund, um, And so we're continuing to develop content there. Um. But one of the other things, and I think there'll be there's been a lot of great content that's come out and will certainly see more. Um. But you know, because YouTube doesn't have any gatekeepers like you can just post and become a creator. Um. You know, we've we have seen a lot of people of different backgrounds and

underrepresented backgrounds become creators and have audiences. Um. We never really measured it beforehand because we didn't have a way. And so one of the things that we've done is we've been we've enabled creators to now tell us what backgrounds they they affiliate with, so we can have a better understanding of how they're doing on our platform. Let's talk about YouTube shorts. It seems to be a top priority we all know that TikTok is on the rise.

How important are YouTube shorts to the platform, to the company, So YouTube firs it's very important. UM. We see that creators UM and users want to watch all types of content, long form, short form. It turns out that the first video that was actually ever uploaded to YouTube me at the Zoo was an eighteen second video, so it was a short form video. And what we have lots of short form views and we've had a way before TikTok did.

But what we have really been leaning into more is just enabling those two be found UM and then a lot of the creation tools and so bringing a lot more mobile creation is really important for us going forward. Did you notice that viewing time was being lost to TikTok? Did you see that trend? And do you see TikTok as a sort of existential threat. I mean, we definitely see many competitors in this space. What we're just focused on our like our own metrics, like do we see

our users engaging UM, where's our opportunity? We're always looking around and seeing what our competitors are doing and if they're doing something we think would be good for our users and our creators like you know, we're also gonna look at how we can improve our our own economy, creator economy and what's good for our users. This is my conversation with the CEO of YouTube, Susan Wichitzki. Coming up the video giants, war against COVID and vaccine misinformation

and what about kids? We'll talk about how YouTube can keep children safe from toxic content. I'm etally chang. This is Bloomberg Studio. One point out stay with us. At this point. YouTube has become a hub for discovery, for information for you know, it satisfies our our curiosities. Right. That comes with a lot of inspiration, but also with misinformation when it comes to vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, videos that cause a public health risk. Where do you want to

see YouTube do better? We've taken responsibility very seriously. It's been one of my top priorities. So first of all, we want to make sure that if there's information that violates our policies. We came up with ten different policies around COVID. Then if that's a violation of policies, then that's something that will remove. We removed over a million videos associated with COVID, but we also want to make sure that we're raising up information that we think would

be that come from trusted and authoritative sources. And we've really been able to do that. I think a lot of people, you know, we talk about vaccine hesitancy and they blame social media. They say YouTube not doing enough. You know, how do you respond to that? Yeah, I mean I think, well, first of all, we're always learning. I just just to be fair, like, we're always thinking about how can we do better. We're looking at the feedback and working with public health experts UM across the

board and UM. You know, I think one of the big things for us is to continue to work with public health experts to understand, you know, what are the ways that we can partner with them to get their messages across UM. And I really believe that that is something that's really changed, is the is the evolution of bringing creators, musicians, experts talking about public health. We never

would have seen that before the pandemic. How much do you internalize the criticism of of YouTube's content do you take it personally? And and and how does that influence the decisions that you make? Is CEO, I want to be doing the right thing, and I care about that. I care about the legacy that we leave. I care about the world that we leave to our children. I care about how media is consumed by the next generation

and by by everyone today. And so I really have put a lot of time and effort to make sure that we are acting responsibly. UM. And there's always a balance between the free speech and uh right, but being responsible and taking down content that we think could lead to some kind of real world harm um. And so make sure, I think whenever you're in a position like that,

there's going to be a lot of criticism. UM. But our goal is just to continue to talk to experts and evolve and how do you make decisions in those tough moments where it's a tough call, Like how much of it is making a decision or leading by consensus and how much does it come down to you? The goal is that when we have tough decisions, they're not we're not they're like improvising in some way, like we've made a concrete set of decisions beforehand, and then we're

looking and saying, is this something that meets our standards? Um? Is it a violation or not a violation? And if it seems like there's some set of issues with the content that we have on the platform. We're going to go back to experts and then reevaluate is it should we be making changes to our policies. YouTube helped keep a generation of children connected, educated, entertained, this drafted through

the pandemic. What have you learned from that experience and what do you see as the potential future of YouTube as a tool for learning as a tool in schools. When I meet people and they find out on the CEO of YouTube, almost always they tell me about something they learned on YouTube or someone that they're something their family member learned UM. So I see that as being a very significant part of YouTube. And during the pandemic, we certainly saw that a lot more education went online,

and we had all the homeschooling. We had people who had to also just learn a lot of skills that

they hadn't learned beforehand. But probably the biggest thing that we also learned was just and that I really saw was a need for us to continue to work with educational UM institutions and the need for us to be able to integrate with some of the learning tools that the kids are all using because they are using YouTube, and there's a lot more that we can do to really help educators have YouTube be a key part of

the curriculum. My kids are on YouTube a lot, and sometimes more than I want them to be, and sometimes it's super productive and they're learning something cool, and sometimes it's not productive at all. How are you innovating to make the time that kids spend on YouTube more valuable and of course safe. It's very important to me as a parent to make sure that we're giving parents options

about how what they want their kids to see. And that's one of the reasons that pretty much as soon as I got to YouTube, we started working on YouTube kids um, which is a separate app, which is important for kids in terms of how we can control the quality and we can give parents a lot more control about what kind of content is appropriate for them and

their family. And you know, there are many other things like we actually just came out with a supervised experience for tweens because tweens was one of the age groups that was actually hardest. They usually don't want to be on the kids app, but they're not thirteen to be on the on the main app, and so the supervised experience is something that we recently came out with. The Wall Street Journal has been doing some in depth reporting

on Facebook. UM. You know, the report is that Facebook knew that Instagram was toxic for teen girls and didn't do anything about it. Does YouTube look at the impact it has on on teen users, the influence that might have on on someone's body image or self esteem. First of all, I think it's a it's a very important topic.

And UM we we UM do have a panel of experts that we work with to be able to help us understand what are the different ways that our product could be used or what are how do we face some of these challenging issues to make sure that we're getting the best advice UM and UM we certainly do see for a lot of really tough issues that YouTube can be a really valuable resource. So body positivity, mental health. We see a lot of creators actually talk about mental health.

UM and that that for a lot of kids. UM, it's really like destigmatizes UM and enables people to talk about what's happening and what's going on with them. The potential long term impact of YouTube on teens and on children, whether it is toxic or whether it's addictive. Is that something that you wonder about, Is that something that you struggle with, not just as a CEO, but as a mom. We certainly want to make sure that we are doing what we can to be responsible with kids and in

every way possible. Um. And that's one of the reasons that we actually have worked hard to give parents as many options as possible for them to decide what is important for them and their family, whether that's like limiting screen time, like limiting what is the content they actually have access to. I mean even letting parents just say, these are like the ten videos, my kid can only

see these ten videos, um. And so that is that is really important for us to give the tools back to parents for them to decide what is best for them and their family. You're listening to my conversation with Susan Wichitki, CEO of YouTube up next banning Trump censoring

Russian content. How Wajitski and YouTube are at the center of some of the most controversial choices facing the tech industry yet, and with the Biden administration targeting big tech, the leaders of Facebook, Twitter, and Google have all been called to Capitol Hill. Is Wajitski herself willing to testify before Congress. I'm Emily Chang. This is Bloomberg Studio. At one point, Oh, stay with us. How much did President Trump test YouTube? And how much did it test you

as a leader? Election integrity is something that we see incredibly is incredibly important, UM, and of leaned into in every way we've possibly can we treat all public figures and all public leaders the same as we treat any individual and so, meaning that everybody is held to the same standards. UM. And so we definitely UM held President Trump as we would hold all other presidents and all other elected officials to the same standards that we hold

our creators and anyone else on YouTube. What was that difficult for you as the city of the company. I mean, that's kind of that's like a big responsibility. I mean, yeah, it is difficult, but it is very important. And we also are global, so we're dealing with leaders from all over the world. UM. And there were a number of leaders that and they're continuing to be a number of leaders that that post or that there's content that may be a violation of our policies. UM. But we do

hold a consistent standard across everything that we do. YouTube was the last platform to ban Trump, and you have said his channel will be reinstated when an elevated risk of violence has subsided. How and when specifically will you make that decision. Well, we'll make that decision based on a number of different factors, whether that is like events in the news, um, signals we're seeing from the from

the government, um. And you will certainly continue to evaluate that based on a large number of signals that we see. And will he ultimately be reinstated. I mean, we've stated that we will reinstate him when we believe that there is no risk to public safety or no public danger. Google just remove a voting app for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navali. The Russian government seems to be stepping up

requests to take down content. You've talked in the past about your family history, your grandparents living behind the Iron Curtain, being concerned about censorship back then, and Russia is a huge YouTube audience. How concerned are you about Russian government overreach.

One of the things that we're is important to us at YouTube is the fact that we do enable so many voices and that we do enable people to express themselves and really celebrate the freedom of speech, um And we certainly you know that's that's a core value of ours. Um And. But when we work with governments are many things that we have to take in consideration, like whether it's like local laws or um what's happening on the ground. And so there's always going to be multiple considerations that

we're going to have to take into consideration. I've only said that YouTube deleted a video. One of his videos was that at the request of the Russian government. We certainly get requests from governments, um and, and we look and consider what's you know, why are we getting the request, What's actually happening on the ground, um And, based on

a whole bunch of different factors, we make a decision. Um. So we don't always those are not always requests that makes sense for us to honor, but in certain cases, you know, we will honor them in that country. Biden administration seems to be targeting big tech. We've seen Mark Zuckerberg, We've seen Jack Dorsey now testify before Congress multiple times, and I've heard it said that YouTube is getting a pass. Do you think you should be up there testifying? Well,

I think we do get a lot of scrutiny. I feel like there's a lot of scrutiny UM And because YouTube is part of Google, UM Center has testified a number of different times and answered many different questions on YouTube. So I do believe there's a certain amount of scrutiny. And you know, if if I were ever asked to testify, I certainly would go and testify as well. You're one of the most senior women at Google, if not the

most senior woman at Google. Google has faced a lot of scrutiny for how it treats women in recent years. How much progress do you think Google has made in hiring and promoting women across the company and how much progress do you think still needs to be made. I see a really big effort across technology as a whole to be able to be more inclusive, and I think that is really positive. I've been a big supporter of it.

It's the very beginning, UM. And I mean I think at Google there are many efforts and there's a lot of UM, a lot of work UM that has been done, and I'm sure there's a lot more for us to continue to do. And if you just look at the stats, you can see they're not enough women. We need more women, um in technology, and I think we have made a lot of progress, but it's still hard. It's hard to be it's harder to be a woman in technology, it's

harder to be a minority of any kind. Um. And so I think there's still a lot of work for us to do. When we last book five years ago, UM, you know, I asked you about being a mom. You have five kids, and you said something that really stuck with me. You said, being a mom makes me a better leader. I prioritize better. I see something growing fast, and I run towards that. If something's growing closely, I'm like, I don't have time for that. How has that management

strategy played out for you? I think it's played out really well. I think it's been. I mean, prioritization is everything when you look at it, because we have a lot of opportunity. There's a lot of moving pieces, very dynamic environment. So if you can prioritize and say these are like the most important things to do, then you know you're going to get there faster. Larry and start going to have now left, how long do you plan

to keep running YouTube? How long do you plan to stay at Google as long as I have a mission that I believe in and that I and thinks that I'm excited about getting done. So I have a lot of ways that I see that YouTube can continue to grow. I have a lot of products and ideas and things that aren't yet released and things that we don't aren't yet doing um, and I'm excited about getting those done.

So I think if there comes a time where I no longer have a list of projects where I feel like I don't have that much more to add, than it will be probably time to do something else. Would you throw your hat into the ring to be alphabets next CEO or if the board asked you, would you step up and do that? Well? I think Sunder is doing a great job, very very um please, I think he's doing I mean, it's a very challenge job. There's a lot of different constituents and a lot of product,

a lot of different issues um. And I mean I'll just say I'll always do whatever UM would be wherever I could be most helpful to the company. Do you still talk much to Larry and say I do still see them socially, though not not not work wise. Do you ever talk about work. I mean sometimes maybe casually, but our business is very complex right now, UM, and there's a lot of things that are happening, and so

it's hard for UM. I mean, people may have different opinions, but UM to really to to really engage at a long conversation. Why do you want your legacy to be? I am proud of the way that we've been able to enable people to have a a channel, to have an audience. Like I just met with a number of three three creators and like YouTube really was able to let them shine and create audiences in a business and employ people that otherwise never would have had. And so

that's certainly one UM. Continuing to grow that, I'd say a second, it's been really important to me too to see a lot more women in technology. UM. That has been just a personal goal of mine is to be a role model and try to support women. And I feel very fortunate to be have gotten to where I have, and I know it was due to many different factors, UM, and I want to support the next generation of women and make se technology as like an open place where

anyone can come and be successful. UH. And then probably lastly, continuing to grow what we're doing with education of YouTube. Thank you, thank you so much for having me. Bloom Brook Studio one pointo is produced and edited by Kevin Hines and Lauren Ellis. Our managing editor is Daniel Culbertson, with production assistance from malorye Abelhausen. If you like our show, please share it or write a review on Apple Podcasts or We're where you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Chain,

your host and executive producer. This is Bloomberg