Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube

1. 0:00 – 0:05

   Intro

   1. SBShannon Beckham0:00

      [on-hold music]

2. 0:05 – 1:50

   Welcome back to Stanford and a playful YouTube “vibe check” clip

   1. SBShannon Beckham0:05

      Neal, welcome back to the GSB.

   2. NMNeal Mohan0:07

      Well, thank you for having me, Shannon. Hello, everybody. It's great to be back. It's always super exciting to be... Although I was not on this campus, I was at that very old campus, uh, but it's great to be, uh, o- on site with all of you.

   3. SBShannon Beckham0:18

      Well, it's great to have an alum on this stage who's been in our shoes before. And when I was preparing for this interview, I did the first thing we always do, I looked you up on YouTube.

   4. NMNeal Mohan0:26

      [laughs]

   5. SPSpeaker0:27

      [laughs]

   6. SBShannon Beckham0:27

      And I wanna show one of my favorite videos that I found.

   7. NMNeal Mohan0:31

      Uh-oh.

   8. SPSpeaker0:31

      [laughs]

   9. NMNeal Mohan0:32

      Let's see what this is. [laughs]

   10. SPSpeaker0:34

       Neal Mohan is the most mysterious man on YouTube. He's the new CEO, and people don't know what to think about him, so I decided to invite him to a music festival to get a vibe check on him, and he said yes. I decided to put my best foot forward and get commemorative best friend T-shirts made.

   11. NMNeal Mohan0:47

       Nice.

   12. SPSpeaker0:48

       Neal and I had lunch together, and he bought me my favorite food. Neal and I made our own secret handshake. Neal and I unsubscribed from MrBeast. Neal gave me a piggyback ride when my feet started to hurt. I didn't even ask. Neal and I signed a legally binding agreement that prioritizes my videos over everyone else's videos in the YouTube algorithm.

   13. NMNeal Mohan1:03

       [coughs] I need you to stop.

   14. SPSpeaker1:05

       Overall, I give Neal a 9.5 out of 10.

   15. SPSpeaker1:07

       [laughs]

   16. NMNeal Mohan1:09

       Oh, my God. [laughs]

   17. SBShannon Beckham1:13

       [laughs]

   18. NMNeal Mohan1:15

       I, I didn't realize that when I took over the CEO gig, a big part of my job would be being a straight man for our-

   19. SPSpeaker1:21

       [laughs]

   20. NMNeal Mohan1:21

       ... for a lot of YouTubers out there. But the other... the funny thing about that, uh, that video was, you know, I've... You know, I do like, you know, lots of various press interviews and this and that, and, um, I have a 15-year-old, and his friends couldn't have cared less about any of that stuff. But when I was in that short with Airrack, that was like I basically hit the big leagues with, uh-

   21. SPSpeaker1:41

       [laughs]

   22. NMNeal Mohan1:41

       ... with the 15-year-old set. So that was pretty exciting.

   23. SBShannon Beckham1:44

       That's great. And I mean, a 9.5, creators are a tough crowd. [laughs]

   24. NMNeal Mohan1:47

       [laughs] I know. I know.

3. 1:50 – 5:15

   Childhood across the U.S. and India: learning to embrace disruptive change

   1. SBShannon Beckham1:50

      Uh, we have so much to cover today from creators to AI to your personal leadership, uh, and we'll get to all of it. But I wanna start at the beginning. You were born in Indiana and spent the second part of your childhood in India. How did those early experiences influence you?

   2. NMNeal Mohan2:05

      Um, it's a great question. Um, and, uh, you know, just, uh, by way of background, my, my story, like, the... You know, I... And I can trace it, the straight line back to me sitting here with you today, uh, Shannon, started with, with my, my dad. My parents, my dad came over here. He graduated from IIT in India, um, and wanted to come here to do his PhD. He was, he was, uh, admitted to Purdue, and he was a civil engineer, so he wanted to do his PhD there. He landed at, uh, uh, at, uh, JFK with $25 in his pocket, and, uh, he asked the first person, first friendly face he saw, uh, the quickest way to Lafayette, Indiana. And, um-

   3. SPSpeaker2:47

      [laughs]

   4. NMNeal Mohan2:47

      ... a kind gentleman put him on a Greyhound bus. Uh, and, uh, that was sort of the start of my journey. That's where I was born, as you said. Uh, I grew up mostly in the Midwest, uh, in Michigan, right outside Ann Arbor. And, um, yeah, Michigan fans here. Um, uh, and, uh, you know, pretty normal childhood. Um, you know, w- was this-- We're talking now... I'm dating myself, but this was the early kind of '80s, so it was, like, a lot of Transformers and Star Wars, and that's what I sp- and, you know, baseball. That's what I spent a lot of my, my childhood on. But I remember, uh, distinctly that, uh, there was really kinda two Indian families in our, in our entire town. It was a small town in Michigan. It happened to be that the other kid, Indian kid, was roughly my age. His name happened to be Neal also, so that was a little-

   5. SPSpeaker3:34

      [laughs]

   6. NMNeal Mohan3:34

      ... confusing for a lot of people. Um, but, um, as you alluded to in, um... Right before high school, my folks decided to move back to India, and, uh, I did too. And that was, um, really, at, at the time, it felt like a pretty big sort of traumatic change. And this is... You know, we're talking about the mid '80s here, so this is not like where you can fly to India and back in a few days and kind of it's just kinda normal par for the course. That was a big deal. Uh, I couldn't speak the language, read it or write it. I could understand it 'cause my parents would speak it to each other occasionally. But, um, that was a big shock to the system. And, um, you know, it was a seminal moment for me because, uh, because of two things. One is it would just sort of, um, formulated in my mind in retrospect sort of this, um, concept of just really leaning into change, and that's been, I think, sort of a theme throughout my career. Happens to be really important in the tech business, which I'm in, of course. Um, but, uh, it was really about sort of embracing that change ultimately. Some of my best friends through life are friends that I met during high school, uh, in India. I had to learn, you know, nine years' worth of Hindi and Sanskrit and all of that. Uh, um, and, uh, it's really about not just surviving, it's about thriving through those types of, uh, kind of seminal sort of pivotal moments. And that's happened for better or worse many, many times in my life and career since then, but that's sort of like a big part of my childhood of going from kind of this small Midwestern town to this, you know, pretty big city, Lucknow, in, in, in India and, um, just being able to roll with it and, and, um, you know, come out of it in a, in a much more sort of positive way.

4. 5:15 – 8:21

   Stanford undergrad and GSB: fundamentals, faculty model, and lasting principles

   1. SBShannon Beckham5:15

      Well, it sounds like you embraced change again because then you came back to the US to go to Stanford for undergrad, and then you came back again to the GSB. So how did those experiences here at Stanford shape the trajectory of your life?

   2. NMNeal Mohan5:27

      Uh, oh, boy. Well, you know, I mean, uh, as, you know, uh, John alluded to in his, his kind remarks, I mean, Stanford is a real... And as my wife knows, who's here, uh, Hema knows, is it's a big... It's a really important part of my life because, uh, starting with undergrad, and then I'll get to the GSB in a second, it really, it really did change my life. Um, even in high school, I was kind of like this, um... You know, I knew that I wanted to do something in technology. You know, I remember I started this, uh, software company when I was in high school. It was, uh, and, uh- It was like, it was true like nerd nation. Stanford was like nerd upon nerd. It was like basically software to teach people organic chemistry [laughing] which is a very strange thing. But I loved chemistry, and I loved programming, uh, and I said th- I did both of those things. So I always knew that I wanted to have a career associated with Silicon Valley, and, uh, coming here as an undergrad was really kind of the gateway to that. But it was really less about that engineering education, and really about everything else that, of course, you all know that Stanford offers. And, um, you know, and so coming back for the, for, for business school, A, because it's, you know, the GSB. Let's face it. But also because I knew about Stanford, uh, was a really easy decision, um, for me. And, um, you know, what I'd say about, about the GSB and, and, you know, hopefully you all sort of experienced this. One thing that sort of went into my decision there was the fact that I felt like it was a school that wasn't just gonna be, you know, business war stories or what have you. It was really gonna be truly sort of grounded in fundamentals, and, um, that was my experience here. And I've always thought for years, like why is that sort of such a unique thing about, uh, uh, the GSB? And, um, uh, I was actually in a meeting earlier this morning, and my friend, uh, Derek Bolton, like he always does, kind of distilled it down to its essence, and it's really about sort of the teaching and faculty model we have here that's this combination of like the world's best academics with the world's best, you know, practitioners sort of coming together and teaching. And so I remember that as sort of like a core part of my experience here. Nobody talks about a lot of the classroom [laughs] experience when they give their GSB story, so I thought I would- I'd share that one because I just remember distinctly every class that I took, you'd have this broad business context, but there would be like one or two truly sort of seminal sort of principle things that came out of that class, whether it was like my, you know, non-markets class, and it was like this concept of like, you know, the median voter theorem, which, you know, many of us know, and it sounds like kind of this abstract dry thing. But I can tell you in my career, like literally every month, there's a concept like that that comes up where you apply those sort of basic principles. So that was sort of one thing that, um, I remember distinctly from my, from my GSB days.

   3. SBShannon Beckham8:14

      I learned about the median voter theorem in my class last quarter. [laughs]

   4. NMNeal Mohan8:16

      There you go.

   5. SBShannon Beckham8:16

      So yes, it's still here.

   6. NMNeal Mohan8:16

      It will prove useful to you even though it sounds very dry and boring. [laughs]

5. 8:21 – 10:54

   Choosing DoubleClick over Google: risk, responsibility, and a turnaround bet

   1. SBShannon Beckham8:21

      Uh, and so after the GSB, you took a risk and went back to the startup you had been at, DoubleClick, which you worked at, and then eventually sold to Google. Uh, tell us about that experience.

   2. NMNeal Mohan8:31

      Yeah, so actually that, that reminds me, like my o- the other GSB story, of course, which you all, uh, are familiar with, you hear a lot about, is, you know, the, the network of friends and relationships and colleagues that you build both here, uh, everybody in this auditorium, but also, um, throughout your career and your life. And my experience was like literally like kind of like a concentrated version of that when I was making that decision to go back to DoubleClick after business school. Um, because my boss at DoubleClick was a GSB alum. Uh, my, um, the company had gotten taken private, which is the reason why I went back to DoubleClick, by Hellman Friedman, which was the key investor of it, was Andy Ballard, who's now my good friend like 20 years later. We're on the advisory council together. Um, and, uh, my future boss, who was also trying to recruit me f- the, um, because I was making a choice between Google and DoubleClick, was my professor here, Eric Schmidt. And so it was basically like, uh, the GSB alumni network sort of like manifesting itself in terms of my career choices at the mo- at that moment. Um, but yeah, as you point out, I did go back to DoubleClick. It was a, it was a difficult choice. I was choosing between going to this, you know, fast-rising company called Google right down the road here, and, um, deciding to at that time commute 3,000 miles in the other direction back at DoubleClick, which was in New York. And I had just, uh, um, convinced my wife, who's a New Yorker, uh, to move out to this like very exciting town called Palo Alto from New York City.

   3. SBShannon Beckham10:02

      [laughs]

   4. NMNeal Mohan10:03

      And then I, I sprung the news that, "Hey, um, I might be taking this job back at DoubleClick and commuting in either direction." But I did that, um, and I-- the reason was because, um, it was really just, for me at least, it was just kind of a bet on myself. It was, it was definitely, uh, much more of a startup environment. It was basically coming out of dot com 1.0. The bubble had burst, and it was, it was a pretty big sort of turnaround. Uh, and so there was an enormous amount of risk with it, uh, in terms of business, but I just felt that, um, being given the responsibility to kind of run, um, you know, a big part of it, be the number two at that company, and really sort of position it for what I thought would be a very successful turnaround and hope... You know, fortunately, it turned out that way, was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. And so that's why I chose to go back to DoubleClick after business school.

6. 10:54 – 12:51

   Negotiating the DoubleClick acquisition: focusing on mutual value creation

   1. SBShannon Beckham10:54

      And Dever- DoubleClick, for those who don't know, is online advertising as we know it today. And I was talking to your former professor and current co-teacher, George Foster, who called you the master negotiator-

   2. NMNeal Mohan11:06

      [laughs]

   3. SBShannon Beckham11:06

      ... and believes that's the reason that Google acquired DoubleClick in that moment. Uh, can you tell us what your approach is to negotiating these deals? You most recently just landed NFL Sunday Ticket for YouTube. What advice do you have for us as we're going on to do this in our careers?

   4. NMNeal Mohan11:21

      Wow, that's a great question. Um, I would say a few things. So y- so just by way of background as, as you point out, DoubleClick was kind of, is still kind of this sort of operating system of the internet economy, at least as far as, you know, the fact that it's powered through advertising. And so it was, um, this, you know, very strategic conversation obviously between DoubleClick and Google, and it's, you know, it's obviously public information, but there were lots of other companies at the time that were interested in our products and our technology and, and the company. And, um, it really just, you know, from a negotiation standpoint, it really just means, um, I'm sure you hear this in your classes, but Jordan, uh, George and I have talked about this over the years too. It really is about trying to find- Um, unlocking value on both sides. And so yes, it was a steep price tag for Google, you know, over $3 billion, but, um, it was really about sort of showing what that strategic opportunity was for, um, for Google in this case, and also then Google's, all of our partners, our publishers or what have you. And, um, it's, it's really honestly not about the back and forth, and it's about painting the picture that hopefully is convincing enough that there's all this value that can get unlocked if we can come to, um, some kind of an agreement. And, you know, I think that I'd argue that in terms of value for all of our partners, our publishers, our advertisers that use that software on a regular basis, that wa- that was proven t- true.

7. 12:51 – 15:34

   From ads to YouTube CEO: platform stewardship and being the public face

   1. SBShannon Beckham12:51

      So you turned down Eric Schmidt but then ended up at Google anyways. And while you were at Google you became the chief product officer at YouTube. And fast-forward to today, you've transitioned to CEO. So what has your, uh, trajectory at YouTube been like, and what has this transition to CEO been over this last year?

   2. NMNeal Mohan13:10

      Well, um, well, I've been at Google a, a, a very long time, you know, f- over 15 years. The first part of my career as I was, it was running our display and video advertising, uh, business and, and products. And, um, my, my connection with YouTube actually, um, predates both my time at Google, before we sold DoubleClick to Google, but also before YouTube, uh, became part of Google. So m- one of my biggest, um, partners and customers when I was at DoubleClick was this small company above a pizza parlor in San Mateo down the road called YouTube. And I remember I'd visit from New York at the time, and I'd go in and I'd meet, you know, the founders and the team, and they would just really be, um, uh, um... The, the conversation would be like, "Neal, how can you guys keep up?" Like, "You can't keep up with our growth. Like, how are you gonna actually scale?" And it was just amazing to see. Everything was always sort of up and to the right at this, you know, startup at the time called YouTube. And so I've, I've been very closely involved with that company, even before Google. But during my time running ads at Google, uh, the biggest, uh, advertising property that we had, at least in terms of kind of non-search advertising, was YouTube. So I'd worked with them very closely, and then when I came over as chief product officer, it was not just, you know, working on the advertising side, but building all of our products for our creators and our, and our, and our users of basically the products you use every day. And so that was kind of an easy decision 'cause I was so familiar with, with YouTube. But, um, I took over, um, leading YouTube about, uh, I guess now coming up on nine months, and that transition has been, uh, interesting in a couple ways. One is that, you know, I've been at YouTube for a very long time, so obviously I'm very familiar with our products and our ecosystem. Uh, but a big part of the job is, um, [lips smack] uh, different in the sense that now I am sort of the face of, obviously, of the company. Uh, I have, you know, I spend a lot of time with our creators, as you saw there. Um, and so it's really about making sure that this ecosystem that we're bringing along of two billion users, million, tens of millions of creators, obviously all of our partners, our advertisers, and it's my job to really be the steward of that. And so that is, that sort of is what falls on my shoulders, uh, and in a way that is, um, distinct because ultimately the buck does stop with you.

8. 15:34 – 18:16

   What creators taught him: authenticity and real entrepreneurship

   1. SBShannon Beckham15:34

      So these creators, we've seen you at Coachella, you've mentioned them now. What have you learned from them? You've spent a lot of time with them over the last year, and presumably before that too. What have they taught you?

   2. NMNeal Mohan15:44

      Yeah, I mean, so, um, I- presumably lots of folks in this room have, you know, their favorite creators that they watch, uh, on our platform on a regular basis. I know many, there are some people in this audience who are creators themselves. And I would say, uh, a couple of things. Um, the first and probably the most salient thing, and this is actually advice I give to people who ask me, like, "What is the secret sauce of being a successful creator on the platform?" is it really is just be true to yourself, and that is, um, sounds sort of very cliché, but I wish somebody had given me that advice early in my career because nothing rings more true. And I can tell you for a fact that it's not the algorithm, it's all the other people that are on the other side of that glass when they're watching your video, if you're a creator, that can tell instantaneously whether that is actually truly your authentic self or if you're trying to basically put yourself in another person's shoes. And what I always find striking is, you know, whether it's, you know, it's Airrack, as you saw in that short, or whether it's Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast or Dude Perfect, or whoever your favorite creators are, when you hang out with them in real life, they are pretty much exactly the way that you experience them on the app. And that's their... In, in, in essence, I think that that's their secret to success. Whether they're comic creators, whether they're sports creators, whether they're musicians or artists, like it really is about that. And of course they're incredibly talented and know how to tell stories, but they're true, uh, to themselves. The other thing that I think people don't recognize as much is that not only are they amazing creative people, they are true entrepreneurs. Like, they build amazing businesses. I was in, uh, LA last week. I was meeting with, um, you know, some of our kind of OG creators, Rhett and Link. Um, for those of you who may be familiar, they have this show every day called, uh, Good Mythical Morning. I see some head nods, so you might be familiar with it. They obviously are amazing creative types. It's really them coming t- true. They're, like, they're, like, childhood buddies, grew up in, uh, think North Carolina. Um, started a channel. It's been over a decade. But they are incredibly successful entrepreneurs. They have basically a Hollywood studio, 100 people, you know, pre-production, production, writers' rooms. Um, and they not just, don't just have their channel. They're basically cultivating, um, you know, a, a number of other channels and growing, and they made the choice to build their careers on YouTube as opposed to, like- What used to been the case, going and trying to find a gig with, you know, an existing sort of traditional media company.

9. 18:16 – 20:46

   The creator economy on YouTube: audience-building and sustainable monetization

   1. SBShannon Beckham18:16

      Yeah. I think the creators that you mentioned that are in our classes here would probably really resonate with that, as being entrepreneurs. Um, and I also read recently that one third of kids now say they want to be vloggers or YouTubers, specifically, when they grow up. This is a changing, growing industry. How are you viewing the future of the creator economy? Where is it headed?

   2. NMNeal Mohan18:38

      Um, yeah, I mean, we have, uh, we have one of those at our house. She's 11 years old-

   3. SBShannon Beckham18:42

      [laughs]

   4. NMNeal Mohan18:42

      ... and it's not because her dad works there, but she- we are convinced that that is, like, her career path. Um, yeah, it's- it's- it's pretty amazing. I mean, this term creator economy is obviously kind of a big buzzword today. But, um, it's really been, you know, kind of the essence of YouTube since the very beginning. It is, like, literally in our name, YouTube. It is about building a presence on our platform, and our creators are looking to do two things. They're looking to build an audience. You know, I f- I often describe YouTube as the m- world's most efficient dis- you know, connector of a creative person with their audience, no matter where they are in the world, and so that's the first thing that we do as part of the creator economy. The second thing is economy. Ultimately, it's about be- finding a way for these creators to earn a sustainable living on our platform. And so, you know, we are, you know, the world's largest and original sort of first creator economy. We take ex- enormous pride in that. Uh, that's what our creators tell us all the time. Uh, and when I use the term creator, I n- I don't mean just sort of YouTubers. I mean everything from, you know, the NFL and the NBA on one end of the spectrum to, you know, somebody just starting out in their garage today. Like, really that whole gamut. Um, they're all creators. And so we have always, um, prided ourselves that we don't just find your audience, uh, your fans. We actually help you generate, um, real businesses on our platform, whether that's through advertising. Um, you'll all know that we have a number of subscription products. We have a number of products where fans can directly fund, uh, creators. And all of that revenue, um, uh, from all of those sources, a big chunk of that accrues to our creators. And so I think in the last three years, we've paid out over $50 billion to this creator economy, um, generated through all of these various sort of business models that I talk about. And when you walk the halls of YouTube, that's a lot of what you hear. You hear a lot of that conversation about what is the next thing that we have to do to make creators, creative people, on our platform successful, no matter where they are in the world.

10. 20:46 – 23:51

    AI at YouTube: democratizing creation while managing abuse and misinformation risks

    1. SBShannon Beckham20:46

       I imagine AI is a big part of this content generation. Uh, you just rolled out several AI products, uh, at YouTube, and I'm curious what you think you're most excited for about AI-generated content, and what you're most concerned about. How will that affect these creators you're talking about?

    2. NMNeal Mohan21:02

       Yeah. Um, you know, there's, a- again, that's another thing where I feel like there's just an, an enormous amount of sort of buzz about that this year. But first and foremost, I mean, YouTube, a big part of our investment, if you think about what YouTube the company is, most of the people that work there are software engineers. Um, lots of them machine learning and AI software engineers. And when you open up the app on your phones, um, what do you see? Well, you see, you see a feed. That is the product of all of our investment in AI. That ranking that's happening that's basically showing you the videos that you want to watch right then and there is our investment in machine learning and AI. So that has been a bedrock of YouTube for a long time. But I do think that what you, what you said in terms of creation of content, that part, I think, is going to be, uh, different. And I, and what I mean by that is, um, you know, AI is going to do a couple of things. One is it's going to further democratize the creation of amazing content. I think, in general, that is a very positive thing. Um, but it's also, because it's gonna do that, like, it is just like any technology, it can fall in the hands of bad actors. Uh, and just like we have to be that way with any content on our platform, we have to be vigilant in terms of how we deal with it. So there's always that, and I think our philosophy, my philosophy is you have to be really bold. Um, you have to lean into this technology, back to this, you know, theme of kind of leaning into change. Uh, because it will create these capabilities that will be awesome for all of us. Um, but they, but it also comes with risks. So instead, in, in addition to bold, you have to be responsible, and so that means trying to anticipate, uh, risk, whether they're around misinformation or other sort, you know, deep fakes, whatever you want to call it. And so that's sort of how we, we think about these things. But, you know, just to give you a very concrete example, um, the technology, you know, we, we, we talked about some of this in the w- in the products you're alluding to. We just released this feature where, you know, y- through a text prompt you can wish for a video to be generated. So, you know, you have a creative concept, um, you know, dragons flying through Manhattan. That probably would have been hours, if not weeks, worth of work if you are a creator prior to this type of technology. Now, with this product called Dream Screen, you can do it just like that. And so that's an example of the power of this tool. Um, and so we have to really harness that, and I feel like YouTube, uh, the unique role that YouTube plays, um, in this sphere is that we really do sit at the nexus of technology and human creativity. So our, our kind of mantra is, how do we harness technology like AI to empower that human creativity?

11. 23:51 – 28:09

    YouTube’s role during crisis: guidelines, enforcement, and raising authoritative sources

    1. SBShannon Beckham23:51

       You have technology, creativity, and then one of the other things you just mentioned was safety and responsibility. And I think on a more serious note, my classmates and I, and the world, have watched in horror as the conflict in Israel and Gaza unfolded these last few weeks. What do you view as YouTube's role on the world stage in these moments as a source of information, and especially accurate information?

    2. NMNeal Mohan24:14

       Yeah. Um, first of all, um, you know, just like you said, I mean, we all at YouTube, me personally, my family, um, we're just, um, shocked and just, you know, incredibly deeply saddened by the atrocities that unfolded on October 7th and, you know, obviously the conflict that's playing out on the ground impacting millions of people on the ground, but also many people around the world. Um, and so, you know, the, the, the reality is, and I say this to my teams, um, you know, every day, every week, which is, uh, what happens in the world happens on YouTube. It's a platform where two billion people come to every single day. Of course, what's happening in the world is manifesting itself on our platform. One of the strengths of YouTube is that it is an open platform. Uh, it is a platform that has stood on notions of free speech and open platforms. Uh, but one of the things that I have learned, um, is that, um, you can't have true, truly an open platform and true free speech if you also don't have some rules of the road. And so from the very early days, YouTube has had community guidelines. Uh, and, um, those community guidelines really are the rules of the road of what we allow on our platform, what is removed from our platform, and the conflict in Israel and Gaza that's playing out, um, is, um, a reflection of those rules coming into play. So just to, you know, give you concrete examples, um, you know, obviously there's horrific graphic violence, um, oftentimes in the form of video, that shows up on our platform. We have clear policies around that. We try to strike the balance between, you know, educational and documentary news-related content that should stay up, should get views as people are looking for information on our platform, but we also try to make sure that it is, um, not gratuitous, that it is appropriately age-gated if it needs to be. We have policies against violent extremism. If the video is either indirectly or directly, um, uh, promoting, you know, terrorist organizations like Hamas, then those get removed from our platform. And then to your point around misinformation, this is sort of the most nebulous, of course, and the most diffuse, but, um, we try to, um, be extra vigilant around that. And the challenges, you know, you just asked about AI, and I talked about sort of deepfakes. The real problem oftentimes with mis- misin- misinformation isn't, uh, isn't about deepfakes. It's about, like, really kind of shallow sort of s- like, just fakes, basically. And so you pr- a lot of the misinformation narratives were literally video clips of Call of Duty, like l- video games, um, that were basically being propagated as, uh, footage from, from the war. And so just being vigilant about those types of things, having clear policies, having the investment, um, uh, in terms of not just the policies, but also, you know, in this case, again, machine learning and AI to actually detect content across a corpus of billions and billions of videos, is investment that we have been working on for years, uh, which we've been able to put in place so that we can be fast-acting in terms of, uh, a crisis like this. Um, and then the other thing is, as you alluded to, is making sure that we raise up content. So if you open up the app, you see that breaking news shelf, which is triggering, I think, still all over the world, um, that has content that only comes from channels that have built a history of authority and credibility on our platform and have earned the right to actually show up in our news shelves, show up higher in our search rankings in the, in the, in the algorithmic feeds, etc. So we use a combination of techniques and capabilities, but also based on sort of these core principles of open platform, but community guidelines, which sound like competing principles, but in my mind, they're actually self-reinforcing.

12. 28:09 – 32:38

    Leadership under hard trade-offs: people, principles, and process

    1. SBShannon Beckham28:09

       This is such an important topic right now, so thank you for giving us your insight on it. Uh, I wanna understand tactically some more of your leadership style, uh, in this situation and others. I've heard you say before that if a decision makes its way up to your office, it's a decision between two hard choices, because if it was an easy one, it would have already been made. So I imagine in situations that, like, things don't fit within the policies you just talked about, um, or it's something you haven't prepared for, you have to make really hard choices. As a CEO now, how are you doing that?

    2. NMNeal Mohan28:41

       Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a great question. It's probably the one that I think about the most, um, honestly, Shannon. And so I, I will just... I'll tell you sort of the, the philosophy that works for me, um, and I'm obviously doing it today as the leader of YouTube, but I think it applies to any sort of leadership role. And I think that there are three things, um, that are really important here, and conveniently, they all start with P, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk through them. The first is, is people. Um, I, and I, I remember, I think it might have been actually at the business school where somebody said to me, um, "You know, you can f- in- as a CEO or as a leader, you can find somebody to do every single job except for one, which is hire the people to do those jobs." And so the one role that you have, first and foremost, before anything, is actually finding the right people to be on that bus before you drive to that destination. And so that's-- I prioritize that in terms of my leadership team, the people who work directly for me at the most senior levels of the company, uh, but also, you know, b- levels below them and just having a sort of rigorous rubric in terms of the people that we bring into our organization, especially at the leadership levels, is, like, the first and foremost back to your question of, how do I actually execute? It's really, it starts with people. The second thing that I would say, and, you know, hopefully some of this, you got a flavor of this in my, my answer around the Israel-Gaza, uh, conflict. The second P is principles. And I think this is really important. And I think hopefully, my hope is actually at the end of my career, this is the thing that is most salient in terms of h- uh, what people perceive about how they work with me, is trying to be as principled as possible in terms of the decisions that you make. And the reason why principles are really important is because of what you just said. Because by the time a decision comes to you as a leader, it's often a trade-off between two bad choices. And if you're trying to make that kind of a trade-off, you better have some sort of bedrock of principles by which you're making those decisions. And so, um, you know, as I, I describe sort of one set of those sort of competing principles, the North Star is that we're an open platform, we stand for freedom of speech. But another principle, which is sort of self-reinforcing, but competing in some levels, is you need to have some rules of the road, otherwise you can't really have free speech if it's everything goes. So we have policies against hate speech or harassment. Uh, they're defined very clearly and narrowly, but they're, but they're sort of like having that sort of principle framework is important. You can have freedom of speech on our platform, but it doesn't mean that you get freedom of reach. That's another type of a principle that then sort of permeates into your, into your product decisions. And the reason why the principles are so important is because that's really what permeates into decision-making at every level of an organization, not just for me. You know, that happens at the, you know, VP level, and directors, and managers, and so that's, that's sort of the second thing. Um, and then the third thing, which sounds the most boring, but actually would kind of almost be the first chapter in any book is, um, is actually around process. And, uh, I do think a lot about these types of things because that's the cadence by which you run a company or an organization. Um, what is your, um, you know, how do you dial back everything from an annual plan to a product roadmap, to quarterly OKRs and goals, to weekly product reviews, to weekly pipeline reviews, to daily stand-ups? Having some intentionality and sort of thoughts around how you actually structure those processes is actually kind of like the lifeblood of a company. That's what a- that's what we do all day. You know, we make, you know, m- a lot of my job is making decisions with imperfect information, and you need to have that sort of process architecture to do that. So it's people, principles, and process. If I would leave you with anything, that's sort of really what goes into kind of my leadership playbook.

13. 32:38 – 39:37

    Personal motivations: outsider experiences, community through media, and access via ads

    1. SBShannon Beckham32:38

       We talk a lot about principles and values here at the GSB. Um, and you mentioned a lot of the organizational ones. What are some of your personal principles that drive you? Where do those come from?

    2. NMNeal Mohan32:48

       Um, it's a, it's a really interesting question. I think that, um, you know, kind of, I, as I think back on my, um, uh, I'll say a couple things about that. The first is, um, uh, e- ever since I was a kid, um, you know, back to my days in Michigan and, you know, my days in India and kind of everything, I, I did feel oftentimes that I was part of the community, but I was also, you know, kind of a bit of an outsider. You know, I, in, in Michigan, I was, you know, one of a handful of kids, frankly, that looked like me. Um, you know, I had lots and lots of friends in the community, but I was a bit different. You know, my family was different. And so that was a big part of, um, who I was early childhood. When I went to India, I was also, again, different. Like, I was around a lot of people that looked like me, but I kinda sounded, like, weird, right, compared to, compared to, uh, them. And so again, it was sort of like being part of the community, but being sort of an outsider. And, and for me, um, the thing that sort of like where a lot of my strength came from was finding, you know, those communities as an outsider through a lot of the means that I used, like through, through media, actually. So like whether it was a book or a magazine or a television show back in the day, radio, kind of sports, that was the means by which I sort of found my community. That's why ultimately I am such a kind of media junkie to this day. And so that's kind of a motivator for me. And actually, if you think about even YouTube, like it's a place where you can go, um, you know, if you're like a 15-year-old kid, you feel like nobody understands you, you don't fit quite into the community that you're in, you can find your people on a platform like YouTube. Again, it's in the name. And so that's been like a big motivator for me, and it's sort of like the thing, one of the things that really, um, gets me going in the morning. The other one that I'll just say, um, is, uh, the one common thread sort of through my career, whether it was in my advertising days or running YouTube, is that, um, probably one of the biggest changes I lean- leaned into was when I was graduating from, from undergrad, which was the dawn of the internet. Um, and so again, that's obviously hard to imagine for many people in this room, but I remember here at my dorm at Stanford, like you'd literally line up to get an email address. Like, it was like a whole crazy thing. Like, the internet was literally organized in a directory, right, before, before, before Google. Um, and so that, that was, um... But kind of the core thing about the internet is that it is free and accessible, and, and YouTube is free and accessible. It's like, you know, kind of the video representation of that. Uh, and the thing that really makes it that way, um, is the only model, the only business model that actually allows for that is an advertising-based one. That's what YouTube is. That is what the internet is. And so the common sort of other motivation for me is that we really do feel like whether it's bringing all of us our favorite creators or our favorite news outlets or, or what have you, that is actually powered through a lot of, you know, the business models that my team and, and the like work on. So in terms of like, again, a motivator, I feel like that's a big deal. And so, and in the story that I always use to tell that is, um- The, uh, just the recently, the recently concluded Olympics in Tokyo, the kid who won, or the g- young man who won the, um, the gold medal in the javelin, uh, was this, you know, was this Indian kid. You know, India had never won a medal, you know, kind of track and field medal, gold medal before then. That kid learned to throw the javelin on YouTube, and that's an amazing story. Um, like crazy that like he literally learned and became the world's best through watching videos on YouTube. But the reason I share that story, Shannon, is the reason he could do that is because YouTube was free and accessible to him, and the reason it was free and accessible to him was because of all this work that we do and this sort of advertising-powered, uh, business model. So I think, I think it's really important.

    3. SBShannon Beckham36:58

       The power of community really is that through line throughout your life-

    4. NMNeal Mohan37:01

       Mm-hmm

    5. SBShannon Beckham37:01

       ... and career. Have you picked up any skills like the javelin on YouTube? What have you picked up lately? [laughs]

    6. NMNeal Mohan37:06

       Uh, well actually, you know, my, the skills I pick up on it are much, much more, uh, mundane. So at, during, uh, during the pandemic, uh, our, um, our garage door broke down. So, uh, I not only saved lots and lots of time, but some money by watching, you know, a two-minute YouTube video, and, uh, I'm n- I'm l- I'm not a handyman, as my wife knows.

    7. SBShannon Beckham37:30

       Enigmatic.

    8. NMNeal Mohan37:30

       Yes.

    9. SBShannon Beckham37:31

       [laughs]

    10. NMNeal Mohan37:31

        But I was able to fix it, and I learned that on YouTube.

    11. SBShannon Beckham37:33

        Great.

    12. NMNeal Mohan37:34

        [laughs]

    13. SBShannon Beckham37:34

        Uh, before we go to audience Q&A, I'm gonna ask you a question we're asking all of our speakers this year in li- and with our theme of redefining tomorrow. And you tou- you've touched on a lot of this, of what the future will look like, but as CEO of YouTube, if you could make one change that would redefine tomorrow, what would it be?

    14. NMNeal Mohan37:53

        Uh, that's, well, I, I, I would go back actually a little bit to what, what we talked about. Um, and it really is about, and again back on this sort of theme of embracing change, I do think... And I've been through really big sort of generational technology shifts, many of them through my career. As I said, I started, uh, my career at really the dawn of the internet, so that was, you know, very, very pivotal and salient. The next big one that happened, of course, was the move to, you know, the super computers in our pockets, mobile phones. And I would argue that what we are in the midst of right now, this AI-powered sort of revolution, is kind of that sort of third big seminal almost sort of platform paradigm shift. And, um, from a YouTube standpoint, I, my wish is that we, again, really lean into it and embrace it. There are lots of challenges that we will be faced with with this technology. But on balance, and I'm an optimist, uh, w- what it's going to unleash for all of us as human beings is going to be, uh, truly profound. And in the context of YouTube, it's gonna be about creativity. I gave you examples of like dragons flying over New York. You can extrapolate that to a million different types of creative use cases. But it's also gonna be about, you know, human empowerment, that example that I gave you around the javelin thrower. Well, what if you could go to a platform and say, you know, "Give me, you know, a five-minute tutorial in Physics 101, but do it in the style of X, Y, Z," my favorite creator, right? Like, that is gonna be the power of this type of technology in our hands. And, uh, my world, my wish is that we, that we lean into that.

    15. SBShannon Beckham39:33

        Great. Okay, we're gonna take some questions from the audience.

    16. NMNeal Mohan39:36

        All right. Let's do it.

14. 39:37 – 51:15

    Audience Q&A: music monetization, product bets, learning features, and live sports strategy

    1. SPSpeaker39:37

       Hi, Neal. My name is Gray. I'm a MBA two here. Thank you so much for being here with us today. I, um, my, I'm also a m- musician, so I have a question about the music industry. Um, as we've seen the rise of digital streaming platforms, we've kind of been trained to value, uh, every song ever written for about $10 a month. And I wonder if you have thoughts on where Y- YouTube's unique position in the music industry would possibly be able to shift or scale that so artists can get back to living off of the art that they create.

    2. NMNeal Mohan40:06

       Yeah. Uh, you know, the, the music... So as you all know, music is, you know, one of the most important, if not most, you know, most important verticals on our, on our platform. We're one of the largest, if not largest sort of music platforms out there. So it's core to what, what YouTube is. And, um, I would say that the distinction between YouTube and other sort of, you know, products you might use to listen to music is that, um, we are not just about, um, creating, uh, opportunities for musicians and artists through the consumption of their, you know, in this case, not to use too much like industry jargon, but your primary, you know, music, art track, or what have you. We are a platform that is, that takes music and mixes it in with other creator content, you know, user-generated content. That is the foundation of, of the, of this other pie that we've been able to grow for the music industry that is beyond just streaming revenues. So the fact that if you watch a video, it's a wedding video on YouTube, it's got a tr- a track from, uh, Drake. That money from that video through advertising or subscriptions actually accrues to the musician or artist. And so it's a system called Content ID. Uh, it is proprietary, you know, YouTube technology, but I think it's sort of one of the crown jewels of what YouTube is. And so our goal is to continue to try to really expand more of that pool. We, we are one of the unique platforms in that you can generate money through subscription revenues on our platform that accrue to the music business, but also through advertising. The complexity sort of that goes into it, without getting into too much detail, is that there are lots of players, obviously, that own various parts of rights, uh, in the music industry. So there's obviously, uh, uh, um, publishing companies. There's record labels, as you know. And so it's really about sort of the economic pie and sort of how it gets divided up. But our goal at YouTube, um, is to try to grow that pie as much as possible. And actually, that's how we think about new technologies like generative AI. How does it actually create new opportunities for artists? At the end of the day, we're in the business of artists and creators, so our goal ultimately is to make sure that what we do- ... is accruing to our artists, and we have to do that obviously with our partners like the labels or publishers. But that's, that's a bit how we think about it, which is ultimately growing the pie through these various revenue streams that we have.

    3. SPSpeaker42:36

       Neal, uh, I'm Shravat, and I'm an MBA one student here. Was curious to know if there was any particular product or feature in YouTube that you're very passionate about, but it didn't take off in the way that you wanted it to, or it didn't reach the potential that you were looking for it.

    4. NMNeal Mohan42:52

       Uh, uh, there's many products that we, um, I mean, they're all... Our culture is one of, of experimentation. We really do try to try out new things. Um, we used to have a product, um, in a, in a number of our, um, kind of we call them sort of our next user, emerging markets. It used to be called YouTube Go. It was basically kind of a lightweight version of YouTube that we built for, um, uh, less capable Android phones in a lot of emer-emerging markets. It turned out, uh, that that wasn't necessary because what ended up happening in a lot of these markets is, uh, leapfrogs. Basically, the local loops, the data loops, um, in India is a great example where Re-Reliance just invested extremely heavily and made it so that that problem of data and the bits of video kind of went away. So that's an example of a product, uh, that we tried out, didn't work, and then we, we sunset it, um, appropriately in that case. Another one that was a lot more controversial that some of you may remember, uh, is, um, is, uh, dislike counts on our, on our- [laughing]

    5. SPSpeaker43:55

       [laughing]

    6. NMNeal Mohan43:56

       It's like, like literally, I still to this day get tweets and emails about this feature that we, that we turned down, which was eliminating the count on dislikes, as many of you obviously clearly know. It was a very controversial decision, but we, uh, but we made that choice to turn down that feature. And again, it act- uh, and that one actually goes back to this principles point that I was making, which is we have an ecosystem of creators and viewers, and, um, they are both incredibly important to us. But, um, how do we make a decision when it comes to a trade-off between those? And the trade-off in this case was viewers really s- in many cases, maybe wanted to see those view counts or those dislike counts as an indication of, like, the quality of the video or what have you. But what was happening was that count became an incentive for, you know, kind of harassment brigading and things like that that disproportionately impacted a class of our creators and particularly vulnerable creators on our platform, female creators, uh, and the like. And that was an example, again, of sort of... Uh, the principle was that will our viewers come to our platform for the thriving creator ecosystem? So we better really get that right, um, even though it might lead to a short-term trade-off on the viewer side, because in the end, what's good for our creators is going to be good for our viewers. So that's another example of a feature that we, that we turned down.

    7. SPSpeaker45:21

       Hey, Neal. My name is Devin. I'm a MBA one here at the GSB. You-- I think as all, we all know, learning has been such a huge part of YouTube since its inception, and you kind of hinted at maybe going from a more passive to an active role in promoting learning on the platform. Could you tell us if that is in the strategy and what that might look like?

    8. NMNeal Mohan45:41

       Uh, I can tell you a little bit. Um, uh-

    9. SPSpeaker45:44

       [laughing]

    10. NMNeal Mohan45:45

        So y- I, I... So you're right, learning is a, is a huge use case on our platform. I think the latest sort of... I think it was a Pew study that I saw, you know, especially for real, you know, young people, teens, um, you know, ninety-five percent of them use YouTube on a regular basis. The biggest use case, of course, is, is, is, is learning on our, um... And, um, so we-- And you know, it's interesting. You know, YouTube kind of grew around this learning use case almost kind of like despite ourselves, right? Like it's not like we built a particular set of features around it. But recently, you know, one of my priorities has been investing in this, especially from kind of the learner standpoint, but also importantly from the, the teacher or educator standpoint, because there needs to be a business model that works for them there. And what's interesting about the learning vertical, because sometimes learning-- because it, and oftentimes ends up being very specific or niche, y- you... an ad-supported model, because ads require scale, doesn't necessarily always, always work. And so one of the products we've been working on is something called YouTube Courses, so that you can actually bundle a playlist of videos and actually allow the creators to put them in the order that they want, to have some additional features in terms of interactivity and things like that. So that's an example of something that we're doing. We're also thinking about should we experiment with, um, being able to generate quizzes off of videos so that if you're a learner, you know, you're, you know, you're whatever, an eighth grader watching an algebra one video, can you, um, check to see if you actually got the key concepts out of it, things like that. So that's sort of the general sort of realm in terms of how we think about it. But I agree with you that obviously learning happens not just by watching, it happens through interactivity. We're obviously-- we're fundamentally a platform about consuming video and audio content, so we're never going to build, you know, all that functionality that you require. But we can augment it, or we can basically provide... We can make it so that we provide the better tools that then fit into perhaps another education tool or, if you're a self-learner, organize them in a way that's productive for you. And so that's, that's sort of how we think about that.

    11. SPSpeaker47:53

        Hi, Neal. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Andrew, and I'm an MBA one. My question is around sports, and so following the acquisition of Sunday Ticket and the NBA media rights are coming up for auction in a little bit. Curious to hear how sports and live sports streaming fits into YouTube's overall strategy and business model.

    12. NMNeal Mohan48:13

        Yeah. Um, so- The way that I think about sports is, so first of all, you know, we're, we're again back to what I was saying about music, probably applies in the realm of sports, too. You know, we're probably one of the largest sports platforms in the world, and, you know, I grew up watching, when I was an undergrad here, I would just, I'd watch, like, five hours of SportsCenter in a row just on in the background, right? Like that's, 'cause I'm a, I'm a sports nut myself. But then I look at it through the lens of my son, who's 15. He's as big of a sports fan as I am. His, his version of consuming highlights is on YouTube, oftentimes through the lens of his favorite YouTube creators, sports creators, in what we call long form, so, you know, traditional VOD content on YouTube, but also through YouTube Shorts. Uh, and so the world of consumption of sports content is changing dramatically. Um, that's the expectation, especially for young people, and so the sports industry has had to adapt to that. That's why you see lots of content moving to streaming platforms, uh, and that was sort of the backdrop of things like, uh, uh, Sunday Ticket. To the NFL's credit, they recognize that their fans, particularly their younger fans, are on YouTube, and that's where they would prefer to consume a lot of this content. And so for us, um, it was really about super serving those sports fans that are already on our platform. So it's about kind of, I think, three things in that case. It's about choice, right? Like now, if you're a football fan, you don't need to call somebody up and have somebody come out and install a dish on your house, right? Like, you just, two taps and you're watching your favorite games. The second is around just what YouTube and Google do, which is just technical and product innovation, right? So that experience glass to glass from the truck on the field to your television screen has to be best in class, so that's where, you know, features like multiview, if you guys have played around it, come into play, right? Like I see some head nods for, I can tell the sports fans in the audience. So that's, that's like product innovation that we should bring. But the third thing that I think is sort of the most interesting here, and back to kind of my son's example, are this blending of worlds. Like YouTube creators, right? Like the fact that even for sports, bringing that to the table is the expectation that their young fans have. So, you know, some of you may have seen, right, like MrBeast was at the Tampa Bay game this weekend, right? Like that kind of a thing is just kind of natural if you are a young sports fan. And so really leaning into that type of change, uh, is another important aspect of it. So we think about it, you know, really holistic, y- consumer choice, product innovation, kind of broad sort of content integration, and that's ... And if we super serve those sports fans, um, not only does that sort of accrue to them, but it sort of spills over into the rest of the ecosystem. There's obviously a direct SVOD subscription opportunity there, but it also spills over into our advertising business.

15. 51:15 – 53:27

    Rapid-fire wrap-up: sports channel idea, family time, and “be true to yourself”

    1. SBShannon Beckham51:15

       Great. Thank you so much for answering these questions. We are going to end with a View From The Top tradition of rapid fire.

    2. NMNeal Mohan51:22

       Uh-oh.

    3. SBShannon Beckham51:22

       I will say a sentence, and you will complete it. Are you ready?

    4. NMNeal Mohan51:25

       Okay. All right.

    5. SBShannon Beckham51:26

       Let's do it.

    6. NMNeal Mohan51:26

       Let's do it.

    7. SBShannon Beckham51:27

       [laughs] First one, if I had a personal YouTube channel, the content would be about ...

    8. NMNeal Mohan51:34

       Oh, for me, that's easy. It'd be about something sports-related. Like I wouldn't be the best commentator, but it would be maybe something to do with the Warriors. Yeah.

    9. SBShannon Beckham51:43

       Great.

    10. NMNeal Mohan51:44

        [laughs]

    11. SBShannon Beckham51:45

        We love the Warriors around here. Uh, the biggest similarity between Indiana and India is...

    12. NMNeal Mohan51:50

        Probably, probably the, the, those five letters in the name-

    13. SPSpeaker51:54

        [laughs]

    14. NMNeal Mohan51:54

        ... is probably what I would say. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    15. SBShannon Beckham52:00

        My favorite thing to do when I'm not working is...

    16. NMNeal Mohan52:04

        Uh, hanging out with my, with my family, our kids, is probably what I like to do. I always, I always say that, you know, in my job I have to travel a lot. I have obviously lots of meetings. I get to, you know, meet lots and lots of incredible people, but, like, my favorite thing to do on the weekends is just hang around the house with my kids, [laughs] honestly.

    17. SBShannon Beckham52:24

        A piece of advice I would give my younger self is...

    18. NMNeal Mohan52:28

        Uh, I, I'll go back to what I said. I mean, I, I th- I wish somebody had s- given me this advice when I was, you know, first coming out of business school, is just truly be, uh, true to yourself. Like really try to, again, it sounds cliché, but f- really think hard about setting your own course. Think about it in terms of longer term. Like not, I'm not saying overplan, but just try to really, really answer the question about, like, on the margin, how is this going to be truly about what I want as opposed to what other people's expectations are of me.

    19. SBShannon Beckham53:01

        And we'll bring it full circle. My favorite moment at Coachella was...

    20. SPSpeaker53:05

        [laughs]

    21. NMNeal Mohan53:06

        Uh, I don't know. What do you, what would it be? Well, uh, it was, uh, let's see. Bad Bunny was great. Yeah.

    22. SBShannon Beckham53:12

        Great answer.

    23. SPSpeaker53:12

        [laughs]

    24. NMNeal Mohan53:12

        My wife's favorite moment was Bad Bunny.

    25. SBShannon Beckham53:14

        Great answer. Neal-

    26. NMNeal Mohan53:15

        Well, so was mine

    27. SBShannon Beckham53:15

        ... thank you so much.

    28. NMNeal Mohan53:16

        [laughs]

    29. SBShannon Beckham53:17

        This has been great.

    30. SPSpeaker53:18

        [applause]

Episode duration: 53:47