Facebook Product Manager Execution Interview: YouTube Goals & Decline
Summary
TLDRIn this product management mock interview, Selena, a product manager at Facebook, discusses setting goals for YouTube amidst the pandemic's growth surge. She emphasizes the platform's mission to entertain and inform, proposing engagement metrics like watch time and user interaction as key performance indicators. Selena also addresses potential trade-offs and strategies to investigate a hypothetical decline in watch time, highlighting the importance of understanding user behavior and competitive impacts on platform performance.
Takeaways
- đ Selena, a product manager at Facebook, discusses setting goals for YouTube with a focus on engagement, retention, and monetization.
- đ YouTube's mission is to entertain and inform its users, with engagement being a precursor to monetization through ads and subscription products like YouTube Premium and YouTube TV.
- đ Selena suggests focusing on user actions that drive engagement, such as watching videos, commenting, liking, and subscribing, as key metrics for success.
- đ To measure success, Selena proposes tracking metrics like average watch time per user, average number of videos watched per session, and engagement actions like likes, comments, and subscribes per video viewed.
- đ The 'North Star' metric identified for YouTube is watch time, which is critical for both user enjoyment and future monetization.
- đ Counter metrics discussed include time well spent, churn rate, reported videos, and creator distribution to ensure a balanced and positive user experience.
- đ€ Selena considers various factors that could affect watch time, such as competition, internal company changes, and user behavior shifts.
- đĄ When addressing a decline in watch time, Selena emphasizes the importance of asking key questions to understand the scope and potential causes of the issue.
- đ The introduction of YouTube Shorts, a feature similar to Instagram Reels or TikTok, is identified as a possible cause for the decline in watch time due to shorter content consumption.
- đ Selena advises that when launching new products, it's crucial to consider the trade-offs between watch time and other forms of engagement, and to adjust strategies accordingly.
- đ For further investigation, Selena recommends examining API usage, partner networks, and other analogous products within Google's ecosystem to identify competitive impacts.
Q & A
What is the primary mission of YouTube according to Selena?
-According to Selena, YouTube's primary mission is to entertain its users, providing a platform for billions of people worldwide to watch videos daily. Additionally, it serves to inform and educate, allowing users to learn something new.
What does Selena suggest as the overarching goal metric for YouTube?
-Selena suggests focusing on an engagement bucket metric as the overarching goal for YouTube, which includes user actions like watching videos, commenting, liking, and subscribing. She believes that monetization will follow engagement.
How does Selena approach the task of setting goals for YouTube?
-Selena approaches the task by first discussing YouTube's mission and overarching goals, then identifying high-level metric buckets for success. She then delves into specific user actions that support these metrics and proposes tactical metrics, a top-line goal metric, and counter metrics to watch out for, concluding with an evaluation of any trade-offs.
What is the significance of focusing on engagement before monetization, as suggested by Selena?
-Focusing on engagement before monetization ensures that the product is loved and used by users, which naturally leads to opportunities for monetization. It helps in building a strong user base that spends time on the platform, making it more attractive for advertisers and potential subscribers.
What are some user actions that Selena identifies as important for driving engagement on YouTube?
-Selena identifies watching videos, the number of videos watched per day, watch time, liking, commenting, and subscribing as important user actions for driving engagement on YouTube. She also mentions the importance of considering the diversity of content watched by users.
Why does Selena consider 'watch time' as the North Star metric for YouTube?
-Selena considers 'watch time' as the North Star metric because it directly reflects how much users are enjoying the content on YouTube. It is a strong indicator of user engagement and satisfaction, which ultimately leads to monetization opportunities.
What counter metrics does Selena suggest to balance the focus on watch time?
-Selena suggests counter metrics such as 'time well spent' to ensure users are enjoying their time on YouTube without neglecting other aspects of their lives. She also mentions the importance of content distribution to ensure a healthy ecosystem for all creators and watching for churn and reported videos to maintain content quality and user retention.
How does Selena approach the investigation of a decline in the watch time metric?
-Selena starts by asking key questions to understand the duration, consistency, and scope of the decline. She then categorizes potential issues into internal team, internal company, and external factors. She considers factors like competition, partnerships, bad press, and product cannibalization as possible causes.
What is the role of YouTube Shorts in the context of the declining watch time metric?
-YouTube Shorts, being a new feature with shorter video content, could lead to a decrease in watch time as users may spend less time on the platform per session. However, this could also be a strategic choice to engage with younger audiences who prefer short-form content.
How does Selena handle the trade-off between watch time and the introduction of new features like YouTube Shorts?
-Selena acknowledges that there might be a trade-off between watch time and the introduction of new features. She suggests that it's important to consider how much watch time the company is willing to give up to support new product launches and whether watch time is still the right North Star metric in the context of these changes.
What advice does Selena give for product managers when dealing with a decline in key metrics?
-Selena advises product managers to start by asking questions rather than immediately diving into data. She emphasizes the importance of communication with the team and structured thinking when investigating issues. Additionally, she suggests considering both the goals of the company and the user experience when evaluating the impact of new features or changes.
Outlines
đ„ Introduction to YouTube Goal Setting
The video begins with an introduction to a product management mock interview with Selena, a product manager at Facebook, who is known for her previous interview on Facebook movies. The host expresses excitement about the video's potential high viewership and introduces the main topic: setting goals for YouTube. Selena is asked to consider YouTube's mission and overarching goals, and to propose a high-level metric for success. She suggests focusing on engagement metrics to drive monetization, as a satisfied user base is more likely to lead to ad revenue or subscription sales. She also discusses the importance of not prioritizing monetization over user engagement, especially given competitive pressures from other platforms like Facebook Watch.
đ Analyzing User Actions for YouTube Engagement
In this paragraph, Selena delves into the specific user actions that contribute to YouTube's engagement. She identifies watching videos as the primary action, emphasizing the importance of tracking daily video views and watch time. Additionally, she considers the diversity of content viewed by users and the ecosystem's health, which includes creator engagement through likes, comments, and subscriptions. Selena also contemplates other engagement metrics such as creator uploads but decides to focus on viewer engagement for this scenario. She proposes a set of tactical metrics and a top-line goal metric to track, as well as counter metrics to monitor for potential trade-offs.
đ€ Counter Metrics and Trade-offs in YouTube Strategy
Selena discusses the concept of 'time well spent' as a counter metric to ensure that users are enjoying their time on YouTube without it negatively impacting their lives. She also addresses the importance of content distribution, ensuring a fair share for all creators and avoiding over-concentration on specific videos or producers. Other counter metrics mentioned include churn rate and the number of reported videos, which can indicate content quality issues. The conversation highlights the need to balance watch time with these counter metrics to maintain a positive user experience and a safe platform, especially considering YouTube's diverse audience, including children.
đ Investigating a Decline in Watch Time
The mock interview scenario presents a situation where YouTube's key metric, watch time, has experienced a decline. Selena, as a product manager, is tasked with investigating the cause. She begins by asking about the duration and consistency of the decline, geographical impact, and whether it's device-specific. The information gathered points to a gradual decline in the U.S. across all devices. Selena then considers potential internal and external factors, including competition, partnerships, and company reputation, before hypothesizing that the introduction of YouTube Shorts, a feature competing with TikTok and Instagram Reels, could be a strategic move impacting watch time.
đ The Impact of YouTube Shorts on Watch Time
Selena explores the possibility that the introduction of YouTube Shorts, a new feature for short-form content, could be contributing to the decline in watch time. She suggests that while this feature may be engaging, especially with younger audiences, it could lead to shorter viewing sessions, thereby affecting the overall watch time metric. Selena discusses the strategic importance of this shift and whether watch time remains the most appropriate metric to measure user enjoyment and success, considering the trend towards shorter content consumption.
đŁïž Reflections on the Interview and Final Thoughts
In the final part of the script, Selena reflects on her performance in the mock interview, acknowledging her familiarity with YouTube from a previous internship and expressing satisfaction with her responses. She discusses the balance between engagement and monetization, the importance of identifying the right time to focus on revenue, and the structured approach to problem-solving she employed during the interview. The host provides feedback, commending Selena's communication style, problem breakdown, and consideration of company goals. Suggestions for further exploration, such as examining API usage or embedded videos, are offered as constructive feedback. The video concludes with a reminder for viewers to engage with the content and seek out further resources for interview preparation.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄProduct Management
đĄYouTube
đĄEngagement
đĄMonetization
đĄWatch Time
đĄUser Actions
đĄMetrics
đĄTrade-offs
đĄNorth Star Metric
đĄCompetitors
đĄCannibalization
Highlights
Selena, a product manager at Facebook, discusses setting goals for YouTube with a focus on engagement and monetization.
YouTube's mission is to entertain and inform; engagement is prioritized over monetization for long-term success.
High-level metrics for YouTube include watch time, user retention, and monetization through ads and subscriptions.
User actions like watching videos, commenting, liking, and subscribing are key to YouTube's engagement strategy.
The importance of considering both viewer and creator perspectives in platform engagement metrics.
Tactical metrics such as average watch time per user and number of videos watched per session are crucial for tracking progress.
Watch time is identified as the 'north star' metric, critical for both user enjoyment and monetization potential.
Counter metrics like time well spent and churn rate help ensure a balanced approach to user engagement.
The potential impact of competitors and the need to monitor their activities on YouTube's performance.
Internal factors such as new product launches, like YouTube Shorts, can cannibalize traditional watch time.
The gradual decline in watch time may indicate a shift in user behavior towards shorter content formats.
The importance of algorithm tuning to ensure long-term engagement with new product features like YouTube Shorts.
Investigating the decline in watch time involves asking key questions about the duration, scope, and focus of the decline.
External factors, such as changes in partnerships or bad press, are considered when diagnosing a drop in key metrics.
The role of internal company issues, like de-prioritization or experiments, in affecting product performance.
The interview concludes with a debrief that emphasizes the importance of structured thinking and communication in product management.
Selena's experience at YouTube informs her approach to goal setting and problem-solving in product management.
Transcripts
how would you set the goals for youtube
[Music]
hey everyone i'm here today to do
another product management mock
interview with
selena we're super excited to have you
back on the show to do another interview
selena but before we jump into it
could you tell us a little bit more
about yourself absolutely
nice to meet you viewers my name is
selena i'm a product manager at facebook
and actually knows steven from back
during our time together at stanford
and i also previously did a mock
interview with exponent about
facebook movies which is really popular
stephen mentioned so happy to be back
yeah um your video just reached a
hundred thousand views by the time
people are watching this one it might be
much more than that but we're super
excited to have you back uh today and at
the request a lot of people
to talk about an execution type question
these are more analytical metrics driven
questions that are asked
by top-tier tech companies um and so
without further ado
i'll jump into asking you the question
and there'll be a couple follow-on
questions that we'll do to investigate
the issue further
um and so first off we're gonna be
talking about youtube today um
which is the platform that we're gonna
be showing this video on
um and an awesome like big high growth
channel
right now especially during the
chronovirus pandemic um
so the question that i have for you
selena is how would you set
the goals for youtube yeah absolutely
just give me one second to collect my
thoughts take your time
all right so i think the way that i'd
like to go about this is
first we'll talk a little bit about
youtube youtube's mission
and what their overarching goals would
be and like a high-level metric bucket
that we would want to set as success and
then we'll dive into
user actions that could best support
that overall metric so we can hone in a
little bit closer on
what we'd actually like to track and
then from there i'll propose some
tactical metrics as well as a top line
goal metric and then probably some
counter metrics that we want to watch
out for
and then i'll close it up with an
evaluation of any trade-offs
sounds great thanks for laying it out
awesome
yeah so youtube's mission overall i
would say
is to first of all entertain its users
you know
billions of people all over the world
love to go to youtube to watch videos
every day
but also to inform i think a lot of
people also use youtube with that use
case to
educate themselves and learn something
new
so in terms of an overall metric i think
we could either go for
you know an engagement bucket metric or
potentially
retention or monetization um so youtube
monetizes with
ads and they actually also have a
subscription product a couple
subscription products um
youtube premium youtube tv so i think we
could consider a monetization as well
but
i really think that it's important to
focus first on engagement and then
monetization will follow so
if you have users who are loving your
product who are coming back to your
product and spending time in your
product
that's how you're able to monetize and
you know either insert ad breaks or
upsell people to the subscription
product
so i think i would really like to focus
on an overall goal of monetization we'll
we'll drill i mean sorry
of uh engagement and we'll drill into
that a little bit
further as we go in that sounds great um
that makes sense
before we jump into that perspective i'm
curious selena if you would have a
perspective on when we wouldn't
prioritize it that way like would we
um is there a case you can imagine where
we might prioritize monetization over
engagement
um yeah i think you know it youtube
is a mature product so we we could focus
on monetization
at this stage i think you just want to
be careful to not focus only on
monetization
and forget why uh you're building the
product in the first place which is to
entertain people
i think once you have a really stable
sturdy base like definitely
you can add teams that really focus on
monetizing and really growing your
your books but i think you know overall
engagement is the way to win
and you know there's competitors
encroaching in the space like uh
uh videos for example on facebook watch
so i think engagement is the way to go
in this particular case
totally cool yeah go ahead with the
engagement and and we'd love to drill
into that more
okay awesome so i think next is
um thinking about user actions that
would help to lead to
engagement so youtube is all about
watching videos so
i would say that's really the number one
action that we want to drive is you know
how many videos users are watching per
day how long they're staying to watch
videos um you could probably also look
at the diversity of videos they're
watching or people
deep diving into one particular area or
are they really
you know exploring the full variety of
content from different content producers
as well
so i think that's on the watch time side
and then
on the other engagement activities that
you can do i know you can
like you can comment you can subscribe
so i think those are all really
important actions that help fuel this
ecosystem because
you know youtube it's not just viewers
there's also creators
which is really important for the
overall amount of content that's on the
platform
so i would want to make sure that there
was um you know engagement in terms of
users uh following them and commenting
and liking
so i think those are the two buckets
that i'm going to start with for now so
we have watch time
which is you know number of videos
watched overall you know length of
[Music]
session
and we can also look at the average per
user
as well as the overall top line numbers
there and then
kind of other engagement actions
which was liking commenting
subscribing
i'm trying to think are there other
actions that i want to highlight
in terms of engagement
you know i think you could also consider
on the creator side
uploads might be a way to measure
engagement
i think i do want to focus on the viewer
in this particular case
so i'll probably focus more on there but
i did want to highlight that since this
is a two-sided market you'd want to
think about the creator side as well
but i think the overall you know north
star is really about people watching on
youtube
totally
okay so now that we have this like large
list of
metrics that we could look at i'm going
to prioritize a couple so
i'm going to pick some tactical metrics
that we would want to you know it's more
of a gut check to make sure we're on the
right
track and then a top line metric which
is our overall north star this is the
one we want to be driving
to accomplish our overall mission of um
entertaining and informing people
um and then i'll also suggest uh
tracking metric for
um things to watch out for to make sure
we're not you know
running into too many trade-offs along
the way
okay sounds great so i'm just gonna take
one second
go for it
okay so i have my three categories
i have my tracking metrics i have my
north star metric and i have my counter
metrics
so i'll start first with tracking so
this is really what's telling me if this
was early on in the launch of the
product that things are going in the
right direction
these are early indicators leading
indicators that things are going well
so i would want to track average watch
time per user
and this is letting me know for a given
user who's watching how long
are they watching i'd also want to track
the
average number of videos watched per
session
this is giving me a good understanding
of you know the number of videos that
are being shown
as well as potentially some distribution
across creators
and then the last one is a likes
comments
shares i'm sorry not shares um
subscribes per
videos viewed so i'd want to see that's
almost like a like through rate
um a kind of blended metric so i'd want
to do a weight to figure out you know
what
what particular weight of these leads to
users being more likely to come back
and retain a week from now and to engage
more with videos and i would want to see
a healthy score there
got it and on that last one do you have
a hypothesis on what blend or how you'd
prioritize or wait some of those
likes comments and shares or subs i
think yeah
yeah i think here i would actually be
inclined towards subscribers because i
think that's what really powers
the ecosystem that then would lead
creators to want to upload more videos
so i think that would be really
important but also this is also a social
product so i would want to make sure
that there's still
you know discussion going on in the
threads as well got it
um okay so then this brings me to my
north star which is really watch time
at the end of the day that's how you
know you're gonna get your monetization
down the line and how you're also going
to prove that
users are enjoying the content that's
there um and this can vary with length
of video so there's different lengths of
content on youtube like this video will
be a certain length so
i think we also want to pay attention to
you know how
watch time is distributed as the length
of content varies
right because maybe you'd have someone
watching a
one hour video and bailing out and they
only watched one video versus people
watching a lot and there's a lot of
different um
content format links that are coming out
so i think that could help to inform
the strategy moving forward
totally um that's something a great
north star metric like
um any concerns with it as we've come to
this or kind of circling around this
metric
yeah so i think that's a great uh
transition to my counter metrics
and one of them would be you know uh
wanting to make sure that people spend
time
it's like time well spent um i know
that's the facebook metric but basically
we don't want people spending so much
time
on youtube that they forget to live so i
would want to make sure that people are
you know
healthy and enjoying the internet in a
positive way um
i think there's also a distribution
concern right if people are just
really rabbit holing on one particular
length you know they're not
expanding to the full ecosystem of of
creators so i'd want to make sure that
you know all the different creators had
at least some share of that distribution
um and then i i guess there's other
counter metrics that aren't related to
watch time do you do you want to talk
more about these
inverse of watch time metrics or am i am
i good to cover the other counter
metrics
um you can cover the other kind of
metrics okay
yeah so the other two that i wanted to
watch out for was
churn so this is all about engagement um
and retention's not quite the same but
if i was noticing
you know a drop-off in users who weren't
coming back to me
this would show me that the quality of
the videos we were showing wasn't
matching what they expected
so i would be looking out for that and
another one i would look out for
is the amount of reported videos so
maybe watch time is up that is really
high but
these videos are low integrity which is
a brand risk so
you want to make sure that you know the
content is up to a certain standard
especially there's you know a lot of
kids that watch youtube
so i'd want to make sure that you know
our community was
a positive and safe place for all of our
users to be totally that makes a lot of
sense
um any other comments about the metrics
and sort of the ones that you've the
kind of metrics as well before
i ask a hypothetical question about the
metrics
yeah i think you could maybe also
consider the counter metric of
creator distribution you know i kind of
mentioned that as something you'd want
to track along watch time
but i could see that also being a
counter metric to look out for if you
just saw a really high concentration on
specific videos
um i know this is also something that
youtube changed the way that videos
could go viral to help ensure
kind of more distribution for all
different types of videos so
you wouldn't want too much watch time
concentrating on any one particular
producer or video type so you might want
to track that not just as a north star
but as a counter metric as well
totally um okay awesome well thanks for
the thoughtful discussion
around watch time i want to transition
this interview into a different sort of
question where
we're going to imagine that that key
north star metric that you picked of
watch time
is unfortunately suffering a three to
four percent decline
over the past couple of weeks and so or
you know
weeks two months maybe uh let's
approximate but um the time range isn't
so important
as insofar as what i want you to do is
to imagine that you're a pm
at this team um and you know you've done
this thoughtful consideration
around watch time but
how would you investigate what's going
on here or what's
causing this decline in that north star
metric
yeah absolutely so i think the most
important thing whenever
this happens in an interview situation
or in real life on the job as a product
manager you want to start by asking
questions
you never want to immediately just run
off and start diving
into the data by yourself like make sure
that you're asking some key questions
about this new trend
so i think the first thing i would want
to ask is how
long has this been happening did this
happen yesterday has this been going on
for a week
maybe a month yeah let's say that it's
been happening for
weeks to a month so maybe like four
weeks um to
a month or two ago like we've seen this
decline so
um within the range of like two to three
months or one to three months or so
got it so sounds like it's been going on
for a while
does that mean it's been a gradual
change or was it acute
like three months ago and we're just now
getting around to dealing with it
yeah we're seeing the gradual decline to
the state where it is today over the
past few months
got it okay
so i think my next question would be are
we seeing this
decline across the board
in terms of geography or is there a
particular geography where we're
noticing a decline
we're seeing the decline actually mostly
in the
domestic market so united states um
we're not seeing the decline as much in
emerging markets or foreign markets
got it that's good to know okay let me
think a little bit
you know normally i would ask is it just
this product or a broader product but
since it's youtube that's kind of
the whole thing i guess i could ask um
there is youtube tv
and youtube premium is this focused on
watch time of a particular segment
um that's a great question it's not
focused on a particular segment so we're
seeing this decline kind of across the
board
on youtube over the past couple of
months
okay
all right this is going to be my last
question before i'll put into buckets my
kind of
issue triage identification which is is
there a particular device type that this
is focused on great question um there
isn't
a device type associated with this
decline so the devices seem to be
uniform across iphone android
as well as the different device types
within those categories so like
the different iphones or the different
uh you know samsung
or um like uh pixel phones
got it okay so at this point i'm gonna
pause my general questions and then i'll
focus in three different buckets of
where i think
the issue could be arising and i like to
think about this as
internal to my team um so i should
probably ask you what team i'm on
um an internal to the company and then
external
are the three general buckets i look
into so i i know i'm about youtube is
there any particular team that i'm on
um let's say that you're on the um
general youtube team you're not on
premium or youtube tv
you're on the youtube product that
people generally see
when they come to youtube.com as a
non-paying user
got it okay so given
what i'm hearing that this happened
gradually from weeks to months
focused in the u.s and it's happening
across the board this would lead me to
think it was either due
to something that happened externally
potentially with a competitor
or that something that happened
internally that has happened over time
um that's either due to an experiment or
a de-prioritization
but since it's gradual this is telling
me that it's a user behavior shift
normally more than it would be um an
infrastructure issue or a system that
went down
which would typically demonstrate a more
um
acute sudden decline so uh i'll run
through a couple questions
i think first i'll ask the the burning
question which is you know
uh did our competitors launch something
within that three
month period that's drawing um share
away from our products because that's
kind of
what i'm feeling is maybe most at play
yeah so
um definitely we've seen a lot of
competitive products in this space in
the past couple of months
um and so there is tough competition and
we do know that from just like a
marketing or partnerships perspective
but it's a little unclear to us right
now if that's the reason that we're
experiencing the decline
but that definitely could be something
we want to investigate further
okay got it
um all right let me think um
maybe i'm also thinking externally i
know we work with
uh partners and third parties so is
there anything that happened potentially
with a partner or someone that we work
with that would have gradually
caused this decline maybe they were
migrating off of
um like i know we offer youtube on tvs
maybe some older tvs no longer
support our youtube app or or something
like that that could be causing the
issue
yeah that's a great question and you
know a lot of for example
um android devices might partner with
certain
oems to make sure certain apps appear
there and there could be a case where
the youtube app did not appear on a
device partner
but in this case um we're not seeing any
changes in partnerships in fact the
partnership season
let's just say is in two months so the
renewals of all those contracts would
have happened
then and it wouldn't have happened
within the past few months
got it um let's see
so i guess this is my last external
question before i go into
internal to the company problems was
there any bad press that happened about
our
company um maybe a couple months ago
that would cause users to slowly but
surely abandoned
it's a great question again i mean uh
cedric himself has been
testifying in front of the u.s
government um so there could be
something there but
for now probably for purposes we're not
seeing something so damaging or so
shocking that would have caused a huge
change in the measures
got it okay so now i'll ask some
questions that probably are arising from
uh internal to the company issues um but
i'm still holding on to that it could
have been something with the competition
in the back cool so
my second leading theory uh second from
competition would actually be
cannibalization so
did we launch something new that's
separate from
watch time um that would maybe be
drawing users slowly away
um or maybe something we're
experimenting with that's being rolled
out gradually that could be
impeding watch time yes so we've
actually
launched um a feature on youtube
where you can see it's kind of like
instagram reels or tik tok
um where we've created a lot of like
short clips of videos that users can
browse through really quickly
youtube shorts yes um
yeah well i would say that that would be
likely
since it's shorter length content to
lead to a decrease in
watch time three to four percent seems
pretty
consistent where i wouldn't expect it to
be an enormous sea change but
as users are adopting this product more
and more um
if that length of videos is shorter than
the typical
youtube video length then you would see
a corresponding drop in watch time
um like that's not necessarily a bad
thing
you know um given all of the engagement
especially among younger audiences with
tick tock this could be a strategic
choice
um and it is a strategic choice to
launch this product so
i wouldn't say that it's necessarily a
cause for alarm in the near term but we
should definitely be thinking about
you know how much watch time are we
willing to give up um to support this
new product launch
and you know maybe maybe watch time
isn't the right north star maybe it's
you know how much
enjoyment users are getting out of the
videos and since there's a general trend
towards shorter
videos maybe you know a total max watch
time isn't necessarily the
best demonstrator of people enjoying
this new product
totally um and yeah like you know in
this particular case that we're talking
about today
um we can imagine that youtube shorts
was just launched
um and so in that case the algorithm
wasn't quite right
maybe let's say to ensure long-term
engagement or longer term watch
time and so that might have cannibalized
some of the youtube
traffic that we normally expect with
users watching
short form content that is not as
effective
at finding the algorithm to get users to
continue to watch the experience
which could definitely happen when a
company launches a new product but
hopefully in the future cases youtube
wouldn't see that decline
as much yeah absolutely i think since
algorithms learn from user behavior it's
almost expected in the near term
if you're moving away from a longer
content form to a shorter content form
that it's not going to immediately get
it right
totally um so congrats to getting the
right answer i know it's stressful and i
thought you did a great job kind of
discussing a lot of the different
criteria i'm curious also for you if you
were going to just dig any further is
there anything else you would have
explored
had you had the opportunity to to
explore some of the other
avenues or answers yeah so um i think a
similar side of the coin i would ask you
know are we de-prioritizing our
regular product in favor of another one
which is kind of
the exact same question but focusing
instead on on the
relative prioritization of the two
products which i think is absolutely
true
um sometimes i look at internal to the
team
which i think with a product like
youtube maybe is a little less valid but
sometimes you can think okay did my
particular team launch an experiment
that's impacting another team or vice
versa
um i think here it's easier to think
about it as a total platform effect
because of
the way youtube is as a product but
that's always an area i like to explore
as well
totally um well selena you can take off
the interview e-hat you did an awesome
job i want a debrief
yeah i want a deep brief um like how
this was for you and
um i wrote down some thoughts on what i
thought you did so awesome with this
interview and i thought it was a really
rich
conversation that's really educative
also so i'm really grateful
you were able to do this but before i
jump into my thoughts did you have any
self-reflection or
self-feedback on how that went for you
yeah i think overall it went really well
i mean full disclosure i did intern at
youtube
uh about a year and a half ago now feels
like forever
so i did have a little bit of
familiarity with with the company
um and yeah i think the the one area
that i felt like i could have done a
little bit better was defending
why not to go for monetization um you
know i think it's always
a little bit of a snake chasing its own
tail between
engagement and monetization but you
can't run a company without having money
at the end of the day
so i think that's something that's
important to understand
when is the right time to focus on that
and i think that's something a lot of
companies struggle with
um but otherwise i thought that that
part was good
i think maybe you were looking for a
different trade-off that i didn't
mention
during the the metric identification so
i guess i'll i'll listen to you on that
front
um and then uh in the second half
around the issue identification i think
there's two kind of flavors for this
sometimes interviewers are looking for
you to identify
um the case and sometimes they just want
to hear how you would talk through that
so i've experienced
both in my my interviewing experience
and i think
you know either way you want to just be
reasoned with your thinking and
if you don't always get to the right
answer even if that's what they were
looking for and you talk through it in a
structured way i think you can still do
well
totally that's awesome advice um yeah
let me run through i mean i agree with
what you said i
some things that i thought you did
really really effectively celina were
one you you did such a great job
checking in with me
i felt like i was always on the same
page with you throughout that interview
um and
you know you even did stuff where you
would say like you know i'm gonna move
on to this section and you really
communicated with me
frequently throughout the interview
especially with execution questions it
gets
really easy to kind of slip into this
pattern where you're gonna say
hey like is it this is it that is it
this
and then um i as an interviewer don't
really have a sense of what you're
thinking or how you're thinking about
that problem
and so that's not an effective tool you
know for the interviewer to assess your
capabilities
but um one line in particular that stood
out to me was you know you said i'm
going to keep competition in the back of
my head or
over here and you know i'm going to move
on to this section and i thought that
was really effective because you
you sort of acknowledged the interviewer
you know i haven't fully figured that
out
and i know it's still an open issue but
i'm going to investigate these other
things
and i thought that communication style
was really really valuable
i also thought you did a great job of
breaking down the problem so you'd often
enumerate
or um split up the problem space into
different components for example
internal
external to the company external or
sorry internal to the team internal to
the company
or external that was a really awesome
way to break down the problem
and to know where your head was
throughout each of those steps so i
thought that was really effective as
well
you did that a couple times um i think
you know
i may have jumped uh ahead of you on
this one but mentioning countermetrics
beforehand or
you know making sure you slip those in
is really important um i actually didn't
have a specific
counter metric that i was looking for so
it's funny that you thought that maybe i
was just putting on my tough interview
or face or something but
um it was more more honestly like uh
the counter-metric discussion that i
think you did was a really thoughtful
one and
um if i had more time i would have asked
you more about you know like time well
spent what does that look like in that
experience
um i do agree the monetization angle we
could have had maybe a richer
conversation around that
but i didn't think that that was so um
important to the essential
interview question that i was asking it
was kind of a side tangent that i took
you along
um so honestly overall and the last
thing i wanted to mention is that you
really did a great job of thinking about
the goals of the company first
these questions often seem tricky but
they um
really make a lot of sense when you
think about the goals and so i love that
you thought about the goals first and
then kind of boiled it down so
i don't have too much constructive
feedback i thought this was like a
really awesome answer
it was a really fun conversation also um
and then yeah maybe maybe one last point
that i would say is just the execution
part at the end
um you know being specific about how
you'd identify those issues so you know
you asked if they're competitors
um but there might be more specific ways
to identify competitive
competitive uh companies in the space um
so perhaps you could have asked about
like
um you know are there other analogous
products within google's ecosystem
or partner network that have seen a
decline or maybe
are users of youtube's api seeing a
decline or you know embedded videos on
youtube seeing a client that might
start to hint if it's a competitive
issue or not so
that was just one constructive piece of
feedback but overall
really awesome interview do you have any
thoughts reactions comments or last tips
for the viewers
no i think that all sounds great and i
think that's a really awesome suggestion
to
you know think about other other ways to
plug into is this an internal or
external issue outside of the the core
product so i think
apis was a great suggestion if that's
the
type of product you're focusing around
to get at that same question from a
different angle
um thanks again selena for being on the
show thanks it was really great to see
you
and for those of you watching good luck
on your upcoming interview
thanks so much for watching don't forget
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