Nikhil Kamath Podcast: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s Top 5 insights for digital entrepreneurs amid rising short-form content

World’s largest content consumption platform YouTube’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Neal Mohan has highlighted five things digital entrepreneurs and content creators should think about amid a surge in short-form content online. 

In a recent podcast with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, Mohan covered several topics, including the links between politics and creators in today’s world, whether podcasts can replace traditional news, and what the future of content consumption is expected to look like. The podcast was released on Sunday, May 25, 2025.

Top 5 insights for digital entrepreneurs/creators

1. Creators lead dialogue: The 51-year-old CEO highlighted how content platforms like YouTube and similar companies are eliminating barriers for entrepreneurs. This gives people the chance to steer the content to what they desire is best for their own customer base.

“One is, places like YouTube and other platforms also have really eliminated the need or the fact of a barrier between you and your audience or your customer, or however you think about it, you are in the driver’s seat, you get to control what that conversation looks like, and you get the feedback immediately,” said Neal Mohan.

2. Real-time feedback: Digital entrepreneurs and content creators should consider the value of real-time feedback. Mohan highlighted how entrepreneurs have to be “ready” for a world that gives instant feedback on all the data posted on platforms.

“As opposed to feedback that would happen in the traditional way, whether you were an entrepreneur and getting the feedback from the market six months down the road, or from your investors a year down the road, feedback on a place like YouTube is instantaneous. You literally see it in the comments within minutes of you, seconds, minutes after you post the video. So that’s a world that you really, really have to be ready for,” Mohan told Kamath.

3. Global audience: Platforms similar to YouTube give creators access to a global audience, which may even be different due to cultural differences, but “storylines” translate to a much wider audience.

“You can have local, regional, national, sort of ambitions. But, you know, content tends to be global. Storylines do translate. They are specifics, obviously, and obviously, culture matters a lot. But that’s, that’s kind of the third thing that I would say,” said the executive.

4. Built for multi-screens: Creators should also look for platforms built for multiple types of screens, which people use to consume the content. Neal Mohan urged the creators to focus more on making their content multi-device capable, like mobile phones and televisions, which gives access to a wider audience base.

“Like the mental model, when you say the word YouTube, what pops into your head, you might be a mobile phone. Well, in the US, the majority of content is actually consumed on television screens. That could happen in the rest of the world. It’s our fastest-growing screen. So just, you know, the kind of multi-modality, multi-surfaces is super important.

5. Reach meets scale: Digital entrepreneurs should explore multiple business models that work for their niche type of content. A content-specific model is likely to be beneficial compared to a large advertising-based model, like YouTube’s.

“Our fundamental business model is an advertising model, and that’s because we’re large-scale. But I also think that entrepreneurs should think about other types of monetisation models, like SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand),” said the executive, suggesting entrepreneurs expand their techniques beyond the pre-existing business models. 

Short Form vs Long Form Content

On the attention span front, the YouTube CEO said that he does not view long-form and short-form content as two separate things. Short-form content stands on its own due to its vertical nature and more consumption on the user’s feed, explained Mohan.

“I think in terms of attention span, you can have a long session just consuming ‘short content’ and vice versa. I see it all in different directions, not one or the other,” he said, commenting on the consumer preference between short and long content.

“We see our long-form content, in many cases, growing even longer, getting more episodic in nature,” Mohan told Kamath.