Sep 7, 2022 • 1HR 2M

Like, Comment, Subscribe (w/Mark Bergen)

On Dead Cat, we talk about the rise of YouTube with author Mark Bergen

 
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A podcast about Silicon Valley, hosted by newsletter writer and independent journalist Eric Newcomer. Listen in for interviews with the dealmakers and builders who matter. Subscribe to newcomer.co for summaries of the episodes plus tech industry news, scoops, and analysis.
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YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki / Getty

Bloomberg’s Mark Bergen is the world’s top Google Kremlinologist, chronicling the rise and fall of technocrats and technologies inside Google parent company Alphabet.

This week, Bergen published a book on Google subsidiary YouTube called Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination.

That Bergen decided to set his sights on YouTube, Google’s massive user-generated video site, reflects YouTube’s significance inside of parent company Alphabet. The video platform is shaping culture worldwide without receiving Facebook-level scrutiny.

Dead Cat co-host Tom Dotan and I talked with Bergen on this week’s Dead Cat about his new book and YouTube’s ascendancy.

We asked:

  • Why does YouTube's early legal battle with Viacom explain how YouTube evolved?

  • What does it mean that YouTube star PewDiePiew has been displaced by a ubiquitous Mr. Beast?

  • Why has YouTube been so weak willed about punishing the worst actors on its platform?

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