Inside The Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World Of Youtube

Alphabet’s online video service has grown from tween pastime to one of the world’s largest sellers of digital advertising. Now it’s poised to overtake the TV ad market—if it can maintain control of the wild universe of content it created.

- Aaron Pressman, Danielle Abril

Alphabet

Revenues $182.5 billion

Employees 135,301

Profits $40.3 billion

Total Return to Shareholders (2010–2020 annual rate) 19.4%

9 500 Rank

FOR DECADES, the Super Bowl has been, well, the Super Bowl of the advertising world. The biggest stage, the biggest brands, the biggest audience, and, for the channel that hosts it, the biggest payday. In February, 96.4 million people tuned in to watch the big game and the ads that ran along with it.

Also in February, Vlad and Niki Vashketov posted a handful of videos to their YouTube channel. The short, manic clips show Vlad, a gangly and expressive 8-year-old, and his doe-eyed 5-year-old brother, Niki, doing kid stuff: persuading their mom to get them a pet, building a giant Lego house, playing with toy cars. Cumulatively, the boys’ three most popular videos of the month have amassed more than 170 million views—and counting.