Alphabet’s 2025 earnings report is here!

And if, unlike me, you have a real social life and don’t read earnings reports, I’ll give you the high-level takeaway: they’re doing great.

Cloud is crushing it. Subscriptions are crushing it. Profitability remains high despite the investment in AI. Even search is growing nicely!

But for the purpose of this newsletter, I care about YouTube: $60b+ in 2025 with $41b+ coming from YouTube ad revenue.

With approximately 2.7 billion active users, they’re pulling in over sixteen bucks for every man, woman, and child on Earth who uses the platform.

I had three thoughts upon hearing this report about the future of the creator economy that I’ll share.

Also in this edition:

🤔 Why most generative AI video channels will fail (Thoughts Are My Own)

🏈 Super Bowl Creator Winners

▶️ Netflix Nets Salish Matter

😎 Meta Considering AI Vibes App

🇺🇸 Audioboom Gets Crooked With Sales Deal

💪🏼 Jobs from Samyang America, Inc, MagicLinks, and SuperOrdinary

🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

TLDR:

It can be hard to connect earnings reports to the impact on customers or clients.

Especially since most earnings reports are full of self-aggrandizing fluff.

But now that we have firm clarity on YouTube’s ad revenue, which is directly attributable to publisher and creator revenue, who get 55% of that revenue in their pockets.

That means of the $41 billion in ad revenue YouTube received in 2025, $22.5 billion went back to creators (sans sweetheart deals or accounting tomfoolery, so we can’t be 100% sure).

Here are three takeaways that came to my mind.

I’m not a big fan of cash grabs.

The money is cool, but you’re generally screwing people along the way.

It’s a small industry. Reputation is everything.

And, in the case of generative AI, it’s usually the audience getting screwed.

Why?

Because if you’re building a true parasocial relationship with an audience and make them care about a creator, then they find out its fake, they’re out for blood.

Just look at Ruddy the Dog. Great views, but once exposed, there was a ton of outrage.

But what about the creators that are doing faceless narratives where everyone with a brain knows it’s AI?

That’s a get-rich-slow scheme if I’ve ever seen one.

I’ve seen plenty of channels do well with this content, but almost all started a year or more ago.

So many people know this game, and some are even selling expensive classes that show you how to do it; it is a saturated market.

Plus, the outrage is still real. Those robotic AI voices, fake ‘true crime’ stories, and terrible AI B-roll images aren’t going to build a lasting audience.

So as someone looking to build something that will turn profits for decades to come, I’m going to pass on this one.

And if I was going to lean in, I would be transparent that I’m using AI, build the concept around an original and meaningful concept, and be ready to roll with the punches when every other AI creator on Earth copies it at scale.

What creators, brands, governments, and platforms are making waves this week in the name of fortune, fame, and fun?

🏈 Yesterday was the Super Bowl! And congrats to…advertisers! It used to be exciting to see creators in the Super Bowl and now it’s standard, from Druski doing T-Mobile to MrBeast doing Salesforce to…everyone else. How far we’ve come!

▶️ Salish Matter, daughter of Jordan Matter, who has been #1 on Famous Birthdays for years (as her father will always say within 5 minutes of every talk), inked an overall development deal with Netflix shortly after a huge launch of her Sincerely Yours skincare brand. Pitch for a show name: ‘Family Matters’.

😎 If you like AI videos without all of those annoying ‘human-made’ videos, Meta is testing a solution for you! Meta is testing their AI video ‘Vibes’ feed as a standalone app. Considering how quickly Sora’s AI video app tanked in downloads, and this is before they roll out pay-per-generation models they’re currently teasing, Meta continues its perfect streak of being both late and missing the cultural moment.

🇺🇸 Crooked Media, the podcast home to many of the top left-leaning podcasts, inked an overall sales representation deal with Audioboom that will take them through the 2028 election. Considering how important podcasts were in the last election, and how much attention this coming election will surely garner with both sides of the coin as worked up as ever, this will surely be a financial windfall for all involved. Is it too late to launch ‘Phil Saves America’?

Creator Partnerships Manager, Samyang America, Inc

Don’t know Samyang? Then you don’t have kids that got addicted to noodle cups after watching K Pop Demon Hunters ten million times. They’re doing high-level creator partnerships with fun cartoon-forward branding, and this is a fantastic opportunty to introduce the brand further into the US market.

Associate Creator Marketing Manager, MagicLinks

MagicLinks has been crushing it in the creator affiliate monetization space for a long time. It’s easy to use, they have ever digital store you can imagine, and their team has always been exceptionally helpful. This is a great role to learn conversion-based creator programs with some of the nicest people in the industry.

Social Commerce Specialist / Manager, TikTok Shop Ops, SuperOrdinary

Transparency note: I love SuperOrdinary. Not just because they own Fanfix, but their CEO Julian Reis is a wildly impressive ecommerce expert. Smart team, great infrastructure, and deep knowledge of how ecommerce operated in both the past and the future.