YouTube co-founder reportedly 'doesn't want' his children watching Shorts

One of the co-founders of YouTube, Steve Chen, in a recent conversation with Jean Kwong, the president of Stanford GSBC, at the Stanford Business School on July 25, 2025, discussed innovation in technology, start-ups, and the various lessons learned over the years. As per Dexerto, the Taiwanese-American internet entrepreneur Steve Chen, who was previously the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of the biggest online video sharing platform, YouTube, during his conversation, also shed light on the fact that he does not want his kids to watch or consume YouTube Shorts.

While Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, the funders of the platform, were part of the initial sale, it was primarily Chen and Hurley who called the shots and sold YouTube to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion. The 46-year-old Chen, who is also a software engineer, during his conversation at Stanford Business School, shared that he wouldn't want his children to watch YouTube Shorts, which are similar to Instagram Reels.

As he took a dig at the growing dominance and influence of short-form videos on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, Chen said:

"I don’t know if I want my kids to be watching like short-form content as their only way, and they can’t be able to watch something that’s more than 15 minutes in length."

Chen spent most of his life in the United States and eventually moved to Taipei, Taiwan, in 2019. As a father of two kids, he stated that short-form content like YouTube Shorts, primarily meant for entertainment purposes, feeds shorter attention spans. He said:

"TikTok is entertainment, but it’s purely entertainment. Shorter form content equates to shorter attention spans."

According to Dexerto, while Chen criticized YouTube Shorts and other short-form videos, he shared that many parents deliberately stop their kids from consuming short-form or fast-paced videos, as they are addictive. Many also encourage or, at times, force their children to watch long-form videos. Steve Chen explained by saying:

"If they don’t get exposure to the short form content right away, then they’re still happy with that other type of content."

While Chen suggested the idea of platforms like YouTube imposing time restrictions to limit usage based on age, he said:

"There’s this delicate balance between what is going to get users’ eyes and what’s going to monetize more versus what is actually useful."

YouTube made $9.8 billion in ad revenue in the last quarter

Trending

The video-sharing platform giant is progressing at a high rate to surpass $40 billion in annual ad revenue. Reported by Dexerto, as per Alphabet's (the parent company of Google and several other tech companies) Q2 2025 earnings, YouTube made $9.8 billion in ad revenue in its last quarter, which happens to be a 13% year-over-year growth. Not to mention, YouTube Shorts have been a major reason behind that increase.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback