Shockingly, YouTube is now the #1 streaming service on televisions – bigger than Netflix – and bigger than broadcast TV.  For 17 straight months YouTube has been the winner, with ad sales growing at double digit rates and exceeding $50B/year.  This podcast tells the phenomenal story of how Google kept tinkering with the platform until it figured out how to profitably monetize those users.

An even better story in this podcast is about the real winners who are the YouTube content creators, many of whom make more than $1M/year.  Even though YouTube doesn’t spend anything on content creation (compared to Netflix’ $17B/yr) it has paid out over $70B to content creators from ad sales over the last 3 years.  And this has implications not only for what you watch, but for you to participate in this “gold rush” where some at the top have net worths approaching a billion dollars.  We explain how diligence, using all social media channels to become an influencer, and making lots of content is now part of the new media marketplace – completely unlike 30 year ago – with a lot of new opportunities being created every week.

Thinking Points:

• Have you ever considered being a content creator on YouTube?
• As markets shift, do you think about whole new business models?
• Do you think about how you can use trends and new technologies to go into new businesses where there is more opportunity than competition?
• Do you have a passion that you always wanted to turn into money?

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