Pick YouTube's Next Strategic Bet and Design Its First Version

You are a product manager at Google working on YouTube. Identify what you see as YouTube's next major opportunity, explain why it deserves priority over other options, and then describe how you would design the product that captures it. ### Clarifying Questions - Which side of YouTube should the opportunity serve first: viewers, creators, advertisers, or a combination? - Is there a target outcome, such as watch time, subscription revenue, creator earnings or new users, or is choosing the outcome part of the task? - Should I consider every YouTube surface (the main app, Shorts, YouTube Music, viewing on TV screens) and every market, or focus on one? - What does "next" mean in time: a bet that shows results within a year or two, or a longer-term shift? ### Part 1 — Choose the opportunity Describe how you would generate candidate opportunities for YouTube, how you would compare them, and which one you would pick. ```hint Look for gaps YouTube is unusually placed to close Favor ideas that build on assets YouTube already has, such as its catalog, its creators, Google's technology or its ad business, over ideas any new entrant could pursue equally well. Check that the idea is not something YouTube already offers. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - YouTube's mission, its ecosystem of viewers, creators and advertisers, and the trends that open new opportunities. - Several genuinely different candidates rather than variations of one idea. - Explicit comparison criteria (user need, scale, right to win, business fit, risk) and a reasoned pick. ### Part 2 — Design the product For the opportunity you chose, design the first version: who it serves, which problems it solves, its key features, and how you would know it is working. ```hint Design for one group first Pick one group of users within the opportunity and walk through their experience step by step to find where it breaks; let the features come from those breaks. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A target segment on each side the product touches, with the pain points in their journeys. - Prioritized features and a deliberately small first release. - Success metrics, guardrails and a rollout plan. ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear line from YouTube's goals to the chosen opportunity to the design. - Effects on every side of the platform, including creators and advertisers, not only viewers. - Prioritization grounded in impact and effort. - Metrics tied to the opportunity, with guardrails on content quality, creator health and trust. - Risks such as competition, cost, policy and cannibalization, and how the plan would adapt. ### Follow-up Questions - Your launch raises watch time but lowers earnings for a group of creators. What do you do? - A rival platform ships a similar feature first. Does your plan change? - What would you need to see after the first release to commit to a much larger investment?