YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing platform in the world now. Most of us associate youtube with Google, and even say that google acquired youtube very early. The fact that Google has spent billions to keep youtube up and running does not mean they developed it. I think Google deserves most of the credit for youtube success today but though google did not actually found YouTube, Google actually bought youtube for $1.65 billion dollars from three guys in october of 2006. So how did these three (3) guys end up founding youtube, what have they been doing since the acquisition and where are they today.
Jawed Karim
In this blog post I will be explaining to you, independently about each person. Starting from Jawed Karim. He was born on 5th october, 1979 in Mursburg which is located in the Eastern part of Germany, both of his parents worked as researchers. Karim father was a researcher at 3m and his mother was a biochemistry researcher at the university of Minnesota.
At a very young age karim and his family was staying in the eastern part of Germany and immigrated to the western part of Germany. So Karim spent most of his early childhood at age 12 or 13 at that place. Karim moved once again this time to Saint Paul Minnesota, where he ended up attending the local high school there. The name of the school is Saint Paul Central High School and eventually after completing the high school, he end up attending the university of illinois at urbana-champaign. He attended the university were the big big tech founders attend.
Karim ended up leaving campus to become an employee at paypal, however he did not actually drop out from college but was working and schooling at the same time. Karim continued his education remotely and finished up his bachelor's in computer science. This wasn't a fast process though it took him seven (7) years to achieve his bachelor's.
In the meantime karim met two (2) guys at paypal company, when he was working in the company. And that is how youtube was founded. According to karim, the motivation for creating youtube came from his inability to find popular clips or videos online. karim was unable to find video of the 38th super bowl halftime show and the 2004 indian tsunami.
In the year of 2005, karim and the two guys from paypal acquired a domain "youtube.com" and develop the website. Over the next few months after developing the platform, karim recorded a video and posted it on the platform (YouTube) on 23rd April, 2005 which was titled or called: "me at the zoo". Though korean played a key role in the initial development of youtube. Karim enjoyed entrepreneurship, he also loved education and he preferred to spend his time pursuing a graduate degree instead of building YouTube.
Karim served as an informal advisor to YouTube as he completed his master's in computer science at stanford university, but this decision significantly reduces payout from youtube when google bought YouTube. Korean received a total of a 137 443 shares of Google which was worth about $64 million dollars at that time. If like he held on to that stake till now, like he would easily be on the path of becoming a billionaire today. But karim really had no interest in the billionaire lifestyle as others do like.
Karim says that, his success in entrepreneurship is great and he just wants to be a professor. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like karim actually ended up becoming a professor as he wish. However karim did end up going down the education path. Karim finished up his masters at stanford university and co-founded a company called university ventures. Kareem and a couple of other distinguished entrepreneurs basically offered mentorship consulting and access to capital to up-and-coming startups.
Some of the biggest companies they have worked with are; airbnb, reddit, palantir, postmates and open door aside from helping other startups. Karim was also notable for opposing Google's decision to mandate Google plus accounts to comment on YouTube in 2013. But this is pretty much with kareem after youtube. He basically just continued his education and went on to invest into it and coach other startups
Chad Hurley
Moving on, we have Chad Hurley who was definitely the most involved co-founder of YouTube. Chad was born on 24th January, 1977. Many other tech founders who are extremely talented in stem subjects, Chad was actually quite artistically inclined. In fact he often sold many of his sketches and artworks during his elementary school days as he moved into high school. He developed a passion for technology, but even then, technology wasn't the focal point of his life throughout high school.
Chad was a star runner in the school's cross country program and he even won two pennsylvania state titles in 1992 and 1994. Moving on to college, chad actually revisited his childhood passion and ended up majoring in fine arts at the indiana university of pennsylvania. After university, chad also ended up at paypal but he wasn't working on the tech side. Chad was actually working on paypal's UI and the company's logo, he also has a different story when it comes to the origins of YouTube.
According to Chad, he claims that the inspiration for creating YouTube came from his inability to share videos from a dinner party online. Anyway, according to this three co-founders of YouTube who's story is the truth and real story after they created YouTube in early 2005. Chad became YouTube first CEO, though he was technically a CEO his initial responsibility mainly consisted of managing the tagging and video-sharing aspects of YouTube in 2006.
Chad was ranked 28th on business 2.0 list of 50 people. I think business 2.0 was spot on with Chad during the acquisition. Chad walked away with the biggest cash out when YouTube was sold. He got or received a total of 694 087 shares of google directly and 41 232 shares of google through a trust in total this added up to a solid amount of $345 million dollars which is over five times more than Karim's own.
Chad didn't leave YouTube after it was sold to Google company, in fact, he actually stayed in the company and was the CEO of YouTube up until the end of 2010. When he re-signed and focus on other businesses. Right after he stepped away from YouTube, Chad co-founded "Avos systems". Avos systems was an incubator company that enabled app developers to develop and test their apps in real time. The company originally operated as an incubator and helped developers develop several apps but Chad always had his eye on one specific app which was named: "Mixbit".
Mixbit was a mobile video-sharing platform like YouTube. Chad hoped that he could revolutionize mobile video-sharing platform with mixbit just like he revolutionize computer based video-sharing with YouTube, but as we now know YouTube ended up dominating the mobile space. Though mixbit never reached the heights of YouTube, the project wasn't a complete waste in 2018. Blue jeans bought certain parts of mixbit with plans of implementing the technology into enterprise video conferencing solutions. Chad has made a couple of investments within the sports world as well in 2014, he bought a part of the La football club with Magic Johnson.
Later on, he invested into the Golden State Warriors and just earlier this year he invested into Leeds United Football Club. Aside from sports teams, Chad even invested into a formula one team called "USF1 Team" in 2009. But unfortunately, this team never actually ended up competing and it's pretty much. Chad has been up to he stayed as YouTube CEO after the acquisition, he tried to create a mobile video sharing platform and he bought a couple of sports teams. Here and there, this brings us into YouTube's last Co-founder "Steve Chen".
Steve Chen
Steve Chen was born on 25th August, 1978 in Taipei Taiwan, Steve spent the first eight (8) years of his life in Taiwan after which his family moved to prospect heights illinois. Steve attended local middle schools and high schools before enrolling in the university of illinois at Urbana-Champaign just like Karim. At university he majored in computer science and he graduated in the year of 2002.
Following his education, he got a job at PayPal where he met Karim and Chad. Unlike the other two (Karim & Chad), Steve didn't jump straight into YouTube, he actually got a job at Facebook Company and he worked there for several months before diving into YouTube. At YouTube, Steve was appointed as the Chief Technology Officer where he ensured that YouTube could support all of the incoming traffic in 2006. Steve was also ranked 28 on business 2.0 list of 50 people who matter now, alongside Chad.
Later that year, during the acquisition, Steve received almost the same cash out as compared to Chad's own. Steve received 625 366 shares of Google directly and 68 721 shares through a trust at that time, the shares were worth around $325 million dollars. But now they're worth $1.78 billion dollars like Chad, Steve stayed at YouTube after the acquisition up until 2009. In 2009 he left YouTube but he stayed at Google, however he left google as well in the year of 2011 to start a new company with Chad.
Steve and Chad started a company together and the name of the company is "Avos systems". Steve was super interested in developing an incubator platform for app developers but he wasn't that interested in creating another video-sharing platform, so when chad wanted to pivot Avos Systems into mixbit, Steve would leave the company. It wasn't an intense corporate fallout or anything like that, though steve and chad simply respectfully chose to go different ways as chad went on to develop mixbid.
Steve went back to Google joining Google ventures. Google ventures focuses on investing into startups and helping them grow and they're basically another company incubator. As this was what Steve was interested in doing with Avos Systems, it's not surprising that google ventures is where he ended up in 2016. Steve actually launched something called "nom.com" this website was focused on live streaming food related content created by users ironically.
Steve parted ways with Chad because he did not want to create another video-sharing platform. But just a couple of years later, that's exactly what he ended up doing. Unfortunately though this never didn't last too long and was shut down just one year later in 2017 for unknown reasons. Nonetheless in 2018, Steve was inducted as a laureate of the lincoln academy of illinois and he received the order of lincoln which is the highest honor given by the state. Later on in August of 2019 Steve decided to move back to Taiwan with his family and he's been living there ever. Steve perfectly moved considering what would transpire, just a couple of months later but that's pretty much.
At the end of the day Karim, Chad and Steve all ended up working at some sort of incubator company, Chad and Steve dabbled with a bit of video-sharing once again. But both of them eventually ditched these efforts and ironically, all the three guys keep a pretty low profile online preferring a life of peace. And were you guys familiar with the founders of YouTube? Comment that down 👇 below and also share this post to 10 people or groups online to be blessed. If you're grateful these guys founded YouTube and of course consider joining our community to suggest future content ideas and to consider subscribing and following our site. But then, I'm James and i'll see you guys on the next content. Thanks for spending your time with me. Comment any question below 👇 for answers.
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