WIRED25: CEO Susan Wojcicki On Making YouTube A Better Place

(upbeat music)

Susan, thank you so much for being here.

Considering I googled all my questions,

I'm feeling a little bit at a loss after that video.

So, first question,

who has time to watch all these Shane Dawson videos?

No, I'm just kidding.

So... Lots of people.

Lots of people do. Millions of people do,

and you've seen this all happen.

You have a very kind of long history with Google.

Famously, it's your garage that it got started in.

And a little extra part.

It was more than just the garage.

And actually, recently, Google just did this

put it on Google Maps with Street View

for our 20 year anniversary.

So, if anyone has any questions about it,

you can just see it on Google Maps.

Floor plan and everything.

So, from that perspective,

being as kind of intimately involved with Google

from the very beginning,

the open internet was this incredible dream 20 years ago.

It was utopian.

It was something to aspire to.

Now, though, people aren't so sure.

So, is there such a thing as too much openness,

and how are you grappling with that?

Well, I think if we look at openness

and we think about all of the advantages that it's had,

they're tremendous.

I mean, I don't think anyone here could think about

going back to a world pre-internet

where you can't have access to all the information

that we have in today's world.

And, you know, we just saw this appear on the screen

of these YouTube creators.

And when I see these YouTube creators,

I call them next generation media companies

because they are people who have a business.

They go out, they have a vision,

they entertain or they inform,

and each one of them actually is generating income.

They're a business, they're a media company,

but they're this new type of media company

that we just couldn't have had in the previous world

where you had to go, you had to...

There was only certain people who had access to video.

So, I think there's no question

that the openness has been an incredible resource

to share voices and to make those voices much more diverse.

On the other hand,

in the last 18 months we've added a lot of language

and a lot of focus in the company around responsibility.

YouTube has always had community guidelines.

We've always said these are the guidelines

that we'll allow on the platform.

For example, we've never enabled pornography,

any kind of incitement to violence, hate.

Those are examples of ways

that we've had community guidelines,

but in the last 18 months we have significantly ramped up

our enforcement of those policies.

We have tightened our policies.

We've committed, Google has committed,

to having 10,000 people who are focused on trust and safety.

We have enhanced those people with machines.

We've come out with a transparency report.

So, if you look and see, we had, in Q2,

we removed almost 10 million videos,

and of those 10 million videos,

we removed almost 70% of that with machines.

And of that, we removed almost 75% very very quickly

without a single view

because we could do that with a machine.

So, this had just been...

I think if you look at it, it's all about balance.

Openness is here, it's really valuable,

but we have to marry that

with the right level of responsibility.

Earlier this year,

you announced actually on stage with my boss Nick Thompson

that YouTube was rolling out a new function

in which they would kind of present vetted text

alongside any topics that were kind of

rife with conspiracy theories.

We're about seven months into that.

How has that borne fruit?

What have you kind of found from that?

Yeah, so what we've done is

there's a number of areas that are conspiracies.

One of them is flat earth, that the earth is flat.

Now, I don't think any of you in the room

probably believe that,

but there are a number of people

who'd try to convince you that that's true.

Now, that's an example of a conspiracy theory

where we have what we have clarify box.

And so, we put below it the information

from credible sources.

Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Brittanica.

We're gonna expand that to even more sources

so that users can get that information

and they can see the video is telling me something,

but here is other information from a very credible source

because it's hard.

We don't wanna be in the business of saying this is true,

this is not true.

We have almost 400 million hours uploaded,

and so we wanna make sure that we...

Sorry, 400 hours uploaded every minute to YouTube.

So, we wanna make sure that we are...

We can't be saying this is true, this isn't true,

but what we can do is we can enhance all of those sources

and give users more options.

So, that covers the factual side of things,

but there's this whole other side of YouTube that is

has been the subject of much discussion over the past,

like you said, 18 months.

And that is how results are presented to us.

So, yesterday, I went on the YouTube app

and I searched for Susan Wojcicki,

and because it was on my phone,

there was room for four results.

The first two were from a channel

called Red Pill Philosophy, which is a little yikes.

The third one was from a video that was not very nice

and had 200 views.

That's it.

And then the final one just said

people want YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki fired.

There were no interviews with you,

at least none that hadn't been re-contextualized

to serve the purpose of whoever uploaded the video.

And you have your own channel.

Your videos weren't there.

What needs to happen to find some kind of balancing point,

not on the factual side,

not on the enabling conspiracy side,

but on the what we are being steered toward

when we are looking for information?

Well, I mean, our goal is to be able to give you

the most relevant information.

We would hope that it would recognize

that I have a channel and these are my videos

and I have lots of interviews, probably like this one,

on YouTube, and I'd be curious what happened on page two.

Right?

'Cause I have a feeling that page two

was probably a lot better than page one,

but we really want page one.

We want those top results to be right.

And I think if you look at the web,

the web has a whole structure.

We're working to figure out like,

what are the right signals for us to figure

when we do ranking for search to bring up the most useful

and relevant information for our users?

And we think about YouTube really as this opportunity

to have the world's information,

but have it be a video library.

And so, our goal is that no matter what you wanna look up,

no matter what you wanna find,

you can find that information on YouTube

and you can find it in a video way.

So, did you go to page two?

I did, but my... And what was there?

There were actually videos of stage interviews of you.

Not mine,

because that would've been a feat of quantum physics,

but it felt like there was a moment

where that was all I saw.

And I thought, well, the swiping and the tapping,

it felt like the SEO gaming ploy all over again,

albeit on a new platform, which felt to me like...

It feels like a game of whack-a-mole sometimes.

Well, we're working.

We're working.

I mean, we wanna make sure that we deliver

the most relevant results,

and we look across a broad set of queries,

we look across a broad set of topics,

we make sure that those results are relevant.

I may not be in the query set

that people use for testing, but...

And certainly as CEO,

you're in the cross hairs of the user base

sometimes in a way that

a lot of public figures... Particularly on YouTube.

Particularly on YouTube.

However, some of that is unfortunately kind of a microcosm

of what happens a lot on internet culture at large,

which is some sort of kind of really deeply baked misogyny.

Now, as a woman CEO of a company

that's astride both technology and culture,

that's two male dominated industries,

or tech and entertainment, rather.

So, how do you create a workplace culture

that fosters more Susan Wojcickis,

that fosters more Geetha Muralis,

who you nominated for our 25th anniversary issue?

Yeah, for Room to Read.

Yeah, I mean, I think first of all,

it's been really important for me

to bring more diversity to tech.

And the reason I see that is I just...

I've been at Google now for almost 20 years.

I've been working in tech for over, I don't know,

approaching 30 years,

and I see how much this industry has changed the world

and I've seen that it's gonna continue...

It's just getting started.

And you say here's this giant force that's making change,

but it doesn't have diversity in it.

It doesn't have enough women.

And so, a lot of times I've tried to explain

what this feels like by saying the internet and technology

has been the printing press in terms of enabling information

to be delivered at a much lower cost

in a much easier way than ever before.

And if you look back at the printing press and you said,

well, we have this new technology,

but only 20% of the world can read that are women,

and then you think...

and write.

And then you say, well,

what does that mean for literature

if only 20% of the books being written

and being written by women

or from different diverse groups?

Well, you're missing a lot of points of view.

There have been a lot of great woman authors.

And so, I've been worried about this

and have been trying to change it in a few ways.

By, first of all, being a role model

and being very positive.

Really encouraging, you know,

I've written a number of op-eds

about encouraging other tech leaders

to take this really seriously and for them to own it,

not just say oh, this is the HR department's role.

No, you're the leader of the company.

You need to own it.

And then also from my perspective,

I've also tried to remind people

that really anyone can be a mentor.

I may be a role model, but anyone can be a mentor.

And I look back at Google as I say, well, who...

How did I get to this position?

And I realize it's really that the people in charge were,

who are pretty much all men, were there,

and they really mentored me and gave me this opportunity.

And so, I remind people your mentor

doesn't need to look like you.

They don't necessarily need to be the same gender

or the same race or the same background, and anyone...

Power is something that is passed on.

People who are in power say these are the next people

that I'm gonna give it to.

And I really think it's important for the people

who are in positions of power to realize that and to give,

think as they hand it out to the next generation,

to think and to encourage a more diverse group in tech.

You've had a number of these mentors in part

because, like I said,

you have this long history at Google

and you've been in so many divisions

in so many capacities that it's...

You're not a founder, you're a veteran,

which seems like it brings with it

an entirely different set of learned leadership traits.

So, how has that changed the way,

your stewardship of YouTube,

in a way that it might now have had you just founded it?

Yeah, well, one of the things that's been good

is that I've basically been at Google since the beginning,

so when I talk to people,

I can imagine every size of a company

from the very very beginning

to the size that it currently is.

And I was very...

I was on Google's leadership team for the first, I guess,

15 years that I was at Google.

And so, when I got to YouTube,

it felt like going back in time.

It felt like oh, this is Google 2002.

This is my opportunity to really take all these lessons

that I learned at Google and how do I apply them to YouTube?

And so, when I joined Google, I didn't really know anything.

Everything I said I knew,

I was probably just making up, and people believed me,

which was incredible.

But now I actually know.

I've done this for a long time.

And so, when I'm in a meeting, I know what questions to ask.

I have a lot of mental models and so,

I wanna use that to make YouTube successful.

But I also, as I talk to other leaders,

I also wanna be able to share that with other people

because I realize 20 years

of running a different tech company, you have real lessons.

And so, I wanna be able to share that also

with the next generation and help them

as they make decisions about their companies.

So, when you came in, it was a little bit like,

I guess, getting custodian of a nine-year-old.

And that nine-year-old is now 13.

And 13-year-olds can be difficult.

13-year-olds get angsty and they get rebellious

and they pierce things and they hide cigarettes.

What...

Yes, I'm aware of all of these issues.

What phase of parenting are you in right now with YouTube?

Is it a tough love phase

or is it a, oh, they'll grow out of it phase?

I think about YouTube as the last 18 months

really growing up, going through our growing up years.

And internet used to be...

We used to have to argue like hey, we're relevant,

we're important.

We actually have all these views

and we have all these people who come to us.

Pay attention to us!

And the world changed really quickly

where suddenly they said okay, we believe you.

You do have a lot of views.

Now, tell us what are you gonna do with that?

And make sure that you're being

and acting responsibly with that.

And so, the last 18 months I really think about

as our growing up years where we put a lot of systems,

a lot of people in place,

a lot of investment to think about

what's the right responsible growth.

And we are committed to that.

And we wanna make sure

that we are delivering the right information.

We wanna be thinking hard about all these tough questions.

As there's questions about

what do you allow on the platform, what you rank,

how do you rank that,

and I think we're in a much better place.

We've worked incredibly hard

and we will continue to do the best job we can

to deliver the best results for our users.

So, there's this whole other side to YouTube

which is the kind of paid content part,

which was YouTube Red, now it's YouTube Premium.

And you recently renewed a series from Doug Liman

set in the Jumper universe,

and there's a series coming from Paul W. S. Anderson

as the director.

My nieces and nephews already watch YouTube.

They don't watch it because it's TV,

but they watch it because it's TV for them

whether it's haul videos or it's gamers talking.

If you've already re-defined television,

why emulate television?

Well, our goal isn't to emulate television.

So, what we have in our subscription service is,

first of all, we have YouTube Music,

which we think is a great music subscription service.

And we have every song and every recording of every song.

So, if you're a music aficionado,

this is a great service for you.

So, that's the baseline service that we have

and that's a $9.99 a month service.

And then for two additional dollars,

we have YouTube Premium,

which also includes the no ads

and then the ability to watch any video offline

and background.

So, airplanes are great 'cause you can download

tons of videos, you can watch them on the airplane.

And then as part of that,

we also have these original contents.

And part of it had been that we have these YouTube creators,

and again,

they really are this next generation media companies,

but they say I've been doing vlogs,

I've been creating content on YouTube for a while,

but I really wanna create a movie.

And we just wanted to make sure that if we have core content

that appeals to our audience,

we want that to happen on YouTube.

These are YouTube creators.

We've really leaned into the creators, into music,

which has been universally appreciated on YouTube,

and areas that we think make sense for our users.

So, it's a small part of a larger offering.

Video has changed so much since 2005.

We've seen whole genres emerge.

We've seen makeup tutorials become an insane industry.

What is a YouTube video in, let's just take the WIRED,

pay in 25 years?

Well, let's see.

25 years.

I mean, I think one of the...

If we look at where video has gone...

First of all,

we've just had so many new voices

that we hadn't had 13 years ago.

And so, we expect that to continue,

but also this interactivity that goes with the platform.

So, you think about TV and it's just this one-way broadcast.

You can't do anything.

You can't talk back to your TV.

And you think about YouTube,

and our goal is how do we make that

as interactive as possible.

The ability to talk to the creator.

We have introduced live premier,

so the opportunity to be able to be the first one

to see that content, to be able to go live,

to be able to have a membership with that YouTube creator,

to have VR experiences.

And so, I think if you think about it 25 years from now,

they'll be video.

We could be watching it on different platforms

than we do today.

I don't know, maybe we'll all have contact lenses or...

I'm not sure where.

I don't wanna say it'll be in our heads.

I don't think I would do that in 25 years,

but there will be potentially new platforms

that we can watch and see these videos,

but I also think the opportunity for people to interact,

to be able to comment, to participate, to donate, to give,

to have a conversation, to talk to the other fans,

to get more reference material around the talk.

And so, I think there are just many ways

that videos will become much much richer

than they are today.

And how does that change?

We're already at a point where more than 70%

of all time spent watching YouTube is happening on mobile.

You're in I think 80 languages.

Although TV screens are our fastest growing screen,

which I think is really interesting.

Are they fighting against mobile?

Well, they're growing faster than mobile.

I mean, mobile's an incredible way to watch video,

but it's interesting to me that people

are now watching YouTube in the living room.

And then we also have YouTube TV

where we've taken TV content

and people are watching it on mobile.

And so, the idea that the content and the platform

have become disassociated with each other.

Does it change the way you scale up, though?

If you've come to assume mobile kind of the default,

but then there's also this push into the living room,

do things need to be considered or it's just one big pipe

and whoever, how they take it in is up to them?

No, we think about each platform,

and we think about how do we optimize it for each platform

and how do we give that best experience.

Usually TV is a shared device.

Mobile is a very personalized device.

So, we're thinking about those types of experiences.

So, if I put it on TV,

not everyone can see my watch history,

which might be for the best.

One last question before I let you go.

We all know the experience

of disappearing down a YouTube rabbit hole.

The good kind.

What's your most recent kind of, not lost weekend,

but you looked up and you're like oh,

I didn't know I'd been watching these videos

for an hour and a half?

Yeah.

Let's see.

Well, I enjoy many parts of YouTube

from the news, music, some of the beauty ones.

I would say recently

one of the things that I've really enjoyed with YouTube

is just the ability to learn.

And so, at YouTube we do over a billion views a day

of educational material, which I think is pretty amazing.

And everyone I meet tells me about new things

that they have learned.

And just the other night,

I was putting my son to bed and it was late

and I wanted him to go to bed.

And then, he always asks really hard questions,

and he asked how is cotton made?

How did things go from cotton to my shirt?

And I was just like, it's so late at night.

I need to go to bed.

Why are we talking about cotton right now?

But then I was like,

you should just go to YouTube and we should look at it.

And so, we opened it up and we started looking

and seeing how cotton was actually made

and actually gets cleaned.

They have, initially,

have stems and dirt in there

and then it's cleaned in multiple machines

and then there's all these different fibers.

And so then we spent a long time

actually watching how cotton material was made.

Well, I thought you said content

and I thought there is not a better woman to ask.

(laughing) Susan,

thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. (clapping)