Facebook Product Manager Execution Interview: YouTube Goals & Decline

Summary

In 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

• 😀 Selena, a product manager at Facebook, discusses setting goals for YouTube with a focus on engagement, retention, and monetization.
• 🎓 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.
• 📈 Selena suggests focusing on user actions that drive engagement, such as watching videos, commenting, liking, and subscribing, as key metrics for success.
• 📊 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.
• 🌟 The 'North Star' metric identified for YouTube is watch time, which is critical for both user enjoyment and future monetization.
• 🔍 Counter metrics discussed include time well spent, churn rate, reported videos, and creator distribution to ensure a balanced and positive user experience.
• 🤔 Selena considers various factors that could affect watch time, such as competition, internal company changes, and user behavior shifts.
• 💡 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.
• 🔄 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.
• 🛠 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.
• 🔍 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

00:00

🎥 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.

05:01

📊 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.

10:01

🤔 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.

15:03

🔍 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.

20:03

📉 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.

25:03

🗣️ 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.

Keywords

💡Product Management

Product Management is the process of guiding a product from its inception to its launch and beyond, involving strategy, planning, and execution. In the video, Selena, a product manager at Facebook, discusses setting goals for YouTube, which is a core aspect of product management. The theme of product management is central to the mock interview.

💡YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing platform that is central to the discussion in the video script. It serves as an example for the mock interviewee to demonstrate how to approach setting goals for a well-known digital product. The script mentions YouTube's mission and how to track its success through various metrics.

💡Engagement

Engagement, in the context of the video, refers to the level of interaction and interest users have with the content on YouTube. It is a key metric for measuring success, as mentioned by Selena when discussing how to set goals for YouTube. The script discusses engagement in terms of watch time, likes, comments, and subscriptions.

💡Monetization

Monetization is the process of generating revenue from a product or service. In the video, Selena considers monetization as a potential goal for YouTube, alongside engagement and retention. The script mentions YouTube's monetization strategies, such as ads and subscription products like YouTube Premium and YouTube TV.

💡Watch Time

Watch Time is a metric used by YouTube to measure the total amount of time users spend watching videos. In the script, Selena identifies watch time as a 'north star' metric, indicating its importance in tracking user engagement and satisfaction with the platform's content.

💡User Actions

User Actions are the activities performed by users on a platform, such as watching videos, liking, commenting, and subscribing. The script discusses these actions as indicators of engagement, which are crucial for supporting YouTube's overarching goals.

💡Metrics

Metrics in the video refer to the quantitative measures used to assess the performance and success of YouTube. Selena talks about various metrics such as watch time, likes, comments, and subscriptions per video viewed, which help in evaluating the platform's effectiveness.

💡Trade-offs

Trade-offs are the compromises made between different goals or objectives, often necessary in product management. In the script, Selena discusses evaluating trade-offs when setting goals for YouTube, ensuring that the focus on one metric does not negatively impact another.

💡North Star Metric

A North Star Metric is a single, key metric that aligns an organization's efforts and serves as a guiding light for decision-making. In the video, Selena identifies watch time as YouTube's North Star Metric, emphasizing its importance in reflecting user enjoyment and content success.

💡Competitors

Competitors are other companies or products in the same market that offer similar services or products. In the video, Selena considers the impact of competitors when investigating a decline in watch time, suggesting that new competitive products could be drawing users away from YouTube.

💡Cannibalization

Cannibalization occurs when a company's new product takes market share from its existing products. In the script, Selena discusses the potential impact of YouTube Shorts on traditional long-form video watch time, illustrating the concept of cannibalization within a product ecosystem.

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

facebook

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

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