00:00We wake up every morning thinking about two things, fame and fortune, okay?
00:07How do we make artists more money?
00:11How do we make songwriters more money, okay?
00:16Because money walks in bullshit talks, okay?
00:19Or it's the other way around, okay?
00:22I, all I could say is that it's critical for us to have a world that has more songwriters and more artists making a living.
00:40We're also in a world where you at YouTube are developing AI tools to help people create videos with less money and more technology.
00:49So what's the fake stuff that you have to avoid?
00:53Fake stuff is, in my mind, thinking that there's a shortcut.
00:58I think the kids are even more hypersensitive and thirsty for the human connection.
01:06And the human connection is music, okay?
01:11And so you could fake a little bit, but ultimately you're going to have to get on this stage.
01:19And on this stage, you're going to have to go mano a mano with your fans, okay?
01:26You're not going to have all sorts of stuff in the way.
01:29You're not going to have your manager or your agent or your record company.
01:34It's going to be you and the fans.
01:36And at that moment, they're going to be so thirsty for that human connection, especially now, as they're being hit by a tidal wave of the future with Gen.A.I.
01:49This is a real opportunity for, you know, artists to actually dig in.
01:59And so I'm very excited about it.
02:01Listen, Gen.A.I. is only an additional tool.
02:05And so, and it's, the Gen.A.I. is desperate for human authenticity to help guide it and to, you know, use it as a tool.
02:20You recently had Anita in your A.I. incubator and Juanez was one of your trusted testers.
02:28Can you tell us what that means and what did you learn from their participation?
02:31So we're constantly learning, okay?
02:34This is, we're, I'm so grateful, Ana, to be able to work for a company that is, like, can you imagine working for Google that owns DeepMind,
02:49that is thinking and pushing the boundaries of what the future is going to look like?
02:56So, when I first saw all the opportunities that Gen.A.I. can do for visual, like Veal, like, I, I, yesterday I met this amazing artist called Ella Talbert.
03:14She's an amazing artist, and, you know, she loves butterflies, and she loves giving Easter eggs to her fans.
03:32Like, she has certain colors that make the fans know what type of vibe she's feeling.
03:40And I think that, you know, she wasn't 100%, she wanted to focus on her own voice and everything like that.
03:52But I said, listen, you know, what would have cost you probably $25,000 to get all these butterflies and all this to be inside your video,
04:05so you could probably do for very little money, and it could be a hugely creative experience for your fans.
04:12Yeah, so fake butterflies are okay.
04:14Yeah, you know, you know what I'm, first of all, it's, it's her being able, like, would you consider, like,
04:28my portrait or your portrait now by all these photographers to be fake?
04:33Because they once were painted, right?
04:36Right.
04:36So, I mean, we're in an ever-evolving, there's absolutely no turning back Gen.A.I.
04:43Gen.A.I. is part of our world.
04:46And I think it's really important for artists and songwriters to get on their front foot and give us the feedback.
04:56That's what we're trying to do.
04:57So, you asked me the question about Anita, and all I could say is we don't know what the killer product is
05:08or something that is absolutely something that the fans are going to dig and use.
05:16And that's why we're experimenting.
05:18But what we want is we want to experiment with our partners, the music industry, to shape it and to navigate it.
05:28Because these are really interesting times.
05:32And what better people to navigate this new world than artists who have been constantly navigating new technologies.
05:43Yeah.
05:44So, you joined YouTube at a time when YouTube had a pretty tense relationship with the music industry.
05:51It was almost 10 years ago.
05:54And the record companies were not happy with the payouts they were getting.
05:59They were frustrated about competing with the user-generated content that was incorporating the music that they owned.
06:06And then many label executives were, I think, skeptical that fans were really going to pay for a service that they were so used to getting for free.
06:15But fast forward to today, and YouTube has racked up 125 million paying music and premium subscribers.
06:25Any applause for that?
06:27Guys, come on.
06:29That is almost half of the count that Spotify has.
06:34And YouTube has just become a huge revenue driver for the music business.
06:39Some might even say a beloved partner to the music business, especially the Latin business.
06:45So, how did you do it?
06:47How did you change that relationship?
06:49First of all, I did it with humility and love for artists and songwriters.
06:55And I couldn't have done it without my crew.
06:58Can the YouTube folks stand up, please?
07:02Okay.
07:03These are the people right here.
07:04These are the people right here.
07:07Okay.
07:08They're loved.
07:10These people are loved.
07:12Okay.
07:13Sandra, Joanne, everybody.
07:16Jenna, amazing.
07:17AJ, Mauricio, amazing.
07:20Everybody works so hard because we understand we have a huge responsibility.
07:27We wake up every morning thinking about two things, fame and fortune.
07:33Okay.
07:34How do we make artists more money?
07:38How do we make songwriters more money?
07:42Okay.
07:42Because money walks in bullshit talks.
07:45Okay.
07:46Or it's the other way around.
07:48Okay.
07:49All I could say is that it's critical for us to have a world that has more songwriters and more artists making a living.
07:59Okay.
08:01But we also understand that fame is critical right now, too, especially with the tidal wave of choice that is happening.
08:10Okay.
08:11And how does these fans find their favorite artists, their new artists?
08:19How do they engage with the platform to locate these artists?
08:25And how do artists utilize the platform in order to engage their fans?
08:34And so, every day, we try to solve these issues.
08:39Every day that we go to work, we understand we're going to work for the industry.
08:43You know, when we talk about that YouTube paid $100 billion to the artists community, the media companies, creators over the last four years, we understand that we are a very important engine for monetization.
09:06We have a twin-engine growth story of people who pay with their eyeballs, it's not free, and people who pay with subscription.
09:18Okay.
09:19It's very important to us.
09:21I'm happy to announce that we have paid over $8 billion in the last 12 months to the creative community.
09:30Yes.
09:31Wow.
09:31Another round of applause for that.
09:34And, but, I mean, I think that we have, this YouTube crew, has the best job in the world.
09:46Okay?
09:47That we get to work on music.
09:53Especially now in this world, this is a very difficult world.
09:58This world is going through a lot of issues.
10:01And music reminds us that we have way more in common than what separates us.
10:06So it's a big honor, a big obligation for us to do what we do.
10:12And we're here to serve.
10:13And one of the critical things that we do is we get together with artists and songwriters in the music industry because we have what we call the voice of the market.
10:33So we have all these engineers and it's on us to go to Brazil, go to Colombia, go to Mexico, go all over and listen to the artists and songwriters in order to give them feedback to build better products.
10:57And what are they asking for?
10:58And what are they asking for?
10:59What are they telling you?
11:00What are they complaining about?
11:02So they're complaining that our staff is too small and they want us to show up more often.
11:09Okay?
11:10Right, AJ?
11:11Okay?
11:12So it's more about our presence.
11:16They want more marketing opportunities.
11:20They want for us to more SPMs, more boots on the ground.
11:28What's an SPM?
11:29It's a partner manager.
11:30They want more of what we're giving them.
11:36And I think like, Rabawana, how do I say it?
11:40Rabawana.
11:42How do I?
11:42Come on, guys.
11:43Help me.
11:43Rabawana.
11:45Incredible artist.
11:46Like, unbelievable.
11:48I met them yesterday.
11:53Holy, I cannot believe what an incredible artist they are.
11:58They did Coachella.
11:59You know, we're involved in Coachella.
12:01We're in our 13th year of Coachella.
12:04And you saw the evolution of Coachella, right?
12:09Well, and they did this interesting thing at Coachella to engage their fans called a watch with.
12:14Can you talk about how that works?
12:16So watch with is when a creator uses their power of their channel to watch with the live performance.
12:25So they brought all this creator.
12:29And I'm, I, can someone give me the name of the creator?
12:33Because I can't pronounce that name.
12:35Go ahead.
12:38Kaleche.
12:39Okay.
12:39So this creator helped Rabawana, how did I do, to amplify their performance at Coachella.
12:54And I just think it, this is just magical stuff that we could only get by being part of the creative community and understanding what the needs of this community is.
13:11Yeah.
13:12There's a lot of things that we're building that are going to just make things easier.
13:16We love premieres, we love after parties, we love, like, collaborations, like, you think about it.
13:25That if you did a record together, neither, and you, it was a Bad Bunny record.
13:34Only Bad Bunny fans would receive the notice that that was happening.
13:43So let's say Mark Anthony, none of his fans would know.
13:46So we've now tethered collaborations together, so both of their fans, I mean, this is pretty obvious, simple stuff, but believe me, there's a lot of engineers, a lot of people that are working so hard on making those little product fixes work.
14:07I'll give you another perfect example, Tiny Desk, Colors, all these wonderful curation channels.
14:18When an artist goes on, their fans, the artist fans don't know that they performed on Tiny Desk.
14:28That doesn't make any sense, right?
14:30But that's computer work, that needs work, and we, like, figured it out, like, of course, if, and by the way, we're so proud of Tiny Desk, they just did a Brazilian, um, um, suite.
14:44Whole series, right?
14:46Yeah, it's just unbelievable.
14:49People are bugging out and having so much fun with Tiny Desk, but now the subscribers of the artist that does Tiny Desk
14:58will be notified that they're doing Tiny Desk, so these are simple fixes that we work on every single day in order to solve the fame part, um, so, yeah.
15:13Great, and so you've spent a lot of time across Latin America in this role, and you also have a lot of family in Brazil, is that right?
15:21I do, I have a lot of family in Brazil, they started in Natal in 1910, eight children, four boys and four girls.
15:31The four boys, um, were getting drafted to the Russian army, um, they're Jewish, so they have to go for 10 years, they're the first one sent into the minefields,
15:44so their father saw an ad this big in Ukraine, Odessa, Brazil, we take everyone, and he put the little boys,
15:55strapped some money on, put them on a boat to Brazil, and they hit Natal in 1910.
16:02Each one of those boys had no less than 10 children, so I have a lot of family in Brazil,
16:11so I know all about feijoada, and casacha, and farofa, and all of that stuff.
16:17Yum. And how has that family connection helped you navigate the Brazilian market?
16:23I don't think it's helped me navigate the Brazilian market, although one of my relatives, who unfortunately died at 91,
16:32passed away in COVID, in Rio, was, um, um, Brazil's, one of the most famous artists in Brazil,
16:43so when they find out that, um, I'm related to Avraham Polachniki, um, they bug out,
16:49and, um, Gilberto Gil invited me to his house, and, um, we had, uh, some wonderful meals and conversations,
16:59and, I don't know, it just, um, there's nothing better than showing up, okay?
17:08That, that even goes to, I have an artist, my first artist, still feeds his family by going to Europe 42 years later,
17:19Curtis Blow. Curtis Blow went to Europe very early on in his career and toured.
17:27He was huge in America, small in Europe.
17:31A lot of artists get huge in their territory, and then says, I don't want to go and, um, start all over in another country.
17:43That doesn't work.
17:44You have to actually go and develop the other country.
17:49You have to get popular in other places, so you don't overexploit your local place,
17:56and also your fans want to know that you're the one that is, um, breaking globally, okay?
18:04So, it's a, showing up is really, really important, and it's one of our great, um, joys at YouTube.
18:12Yeah, so, where else should Latin artists be building their fan bases?
18:17Where do you see the biggest opportunity outside of the U.S. and Spain?
18:22Well, Spain is the gateway to Europe, okay?
18:25And you see, um, everybody wants to get some of this, um, Latin action.
18:30You see Hybe opening up in Mexico City and, and everything.
18:35Listen, why is a little Korean, um, country, um, have such weight outside of Korea?
18:43It's because they work at it, they've perfected it, they keep, um, um, showing up, and they're
18:52really crafting, um, um, uh, amazing music.
18:57And I think the same, this, this, this, uh, the Indians, you see what's happening with Indian
19:03music and, um, um, the power of this, these global platforms are an opportunity for everybody
19:14to just, um, um, travel around the world and enjoy meeting other cultures and giving a little
19:22Latin love to the rest of the world.
19:25I love it.
19:27And do you feel like you need to, you can use AI to translate your videos and, and bring
19:33your music to life in other places, or do you have to make the trip?
19:37AI is going to help translate, but there's nothing like showing up.
19:42Ella Talbert told us yesterday that her first trip to Spain, she met two fans.
19:51Wow.
19:52And she's cultivated those fans and she's breaking big.
19:56So it's just wonderful to see.
19:59Terrific.
20:00Well, thank you so much, Leora, for being with us.
Be the first to comment