YouTube’s CEO, Neal Mohan, received over $100 million in stocks to remain with the company, despite admitting he doesn’t have a creative bone in his body. “First of all, speaking as someone who doesn’t have any creative talent, it is hard. It is amazing what these creators do and connect with their fans,” Mohan confessed. Despite his lack of personal creativity, Mohan leads the world’s number one streaming platform for audio and video, according to Nielsen Data.
The former Chief product officer took over the helm of the video sharing company last year after Susan Wojcicki stepped down to give way to a new era for YouTube which sees short form video becoming popular on the platform.
“YouTube is now by far the biggest streamer in the world,” Mohan told Bloomberg. “We’re really sort of our own thing. And so if we live up to that vision, we think we’re really still in the early days of our growth story and fulfilling what our mission is, which is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.”
Mohan, a 50-year-old Indian-born executive, sees YouTube’s vast reach as a significant advantage. The platform hosts 500 hours of content uploaded every single day, covering every conceivable interest including every genre of music. “In terms of being able to find the particular niche that you are interested in, I am never worried about it becoming homogenous across YouTube.”
A sports enthusiast himself, Mohan highlighted YouTube’s successful venture into live sports with the NFL Sunday Ticket. “We just concluded season one of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube. It really brought together two or three key things unique to YouTube: ease of use, great features, and bringing together creators and live sports content all in one place.”
Creators have seen substantial growth in watch time on living room screens, increasing by 400% in the last year or so. “People come home, sit down on their couch, and they want to turn on YouTube and consume all the content they know and love, from fifteen-hour live streams to fifteen-minute favorite videos from their favorite creators.”
Mohan also emphasized the scale of YouTube’s creator economy, with three million creators in its YouTube Partner Program (YPP). “Most of that is generated through advertising, our primary business. But increasingly, our subscription business, including YouTube Music and Premium, has grown significantly. Additionally, fan funding allows creators to earn directly from their fans.”
YouTube’s algorithms either make or break creators, and Mohan explained exactly how they work. “The recommendations you see in your feed reflect your interests as a viewer. When it changes, it’s a reflection of your personalized history of what you are watching on our platform,” he said.
YouTube’s investment in Shorts has also paid off, with seventy billion views a day and a 50% year-on-year increase in the number of creators uploading Shorts. “We are in a monetization journey, with every single month for the last year showing growth since launching our monetization program on Shorts,” Mohan added.
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