Who doesn’t know YouTube? A platform that broadcasts videos in various genres is very popular and rivals television. Some people don’t even mind not having a television at home, but must have YouTube. Are you a regular YouTube user? Let’s get to know this platform more deeply and get to know its founders.
YouTube Journey
1. The Beginning of YouTube
Youtube was first registered administratively to coincide with Valentine’s Day , namely February 14 2005. I don’t know whether this coincidence was intentional or not by the three founders who are former Paypal employees.
It was Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who initiated the founding of YouTube. At that time, they registered a shophouse in San Mateo, California as the official YouTube address. Their initial mission was to make YouTube a video-based online dating platform.
However, this desire did not go smoothly. Youtube is only visited by a handful of people and unfortunately they are not interested. The three young men placed advertisements on an advertising platform called Craigslist. No joke, YouTube promised to give 20 United States dollars to anyone who wants to upload videos on its platform.
The uploaded video is still related to online dating. The contents must explain the partner that the uploader desires. Unfortunately, this lure has not yet borne fruit. Nobody is interested in Youtube.
This caused the three founders of YouTube to be confused. They evaluate YouTube. Where will YouTube go? This evaluation became a turning point for the company with the white arrow logo in the red box.
YouTube’s new policy is to open the door as wide as possible to anyone who wants to post any video. And the first video uploaded on this platform was a video of their co-founder , Jawed Karim, visiting the Diego Zoo. The 19 second video is entitled Me at the Zoo .
In the video, Jawed Karim tells what he saw. He said that the uniqueness of elephants is their long trunks. Until now, you can still find this video on YouTube. The video was posted on April 23, 2005 by the jawed channel and has been viewed 222 million times.
2. YouTube Takes Off and Gets an Injection of Funds
In May 2005 launched the beta version. At that time, YouTube was founded as a company funded by wealthy individuals ( angel investors ). Six months later, this company received investment funds from capital venture (investment company) Sequoia Capital amounting to 3.5 million United States dollars. In this month, YouTube was officially announced.
Since changing its war strategy, YouTube has experienced a very significant spike. In January 2006 alone, video viewers on YouTube soared to 25 million viewers. Meanwhile, in July 2006, this site had 65,000 videos uploaded every day and was visited 100 million times in one day.
This positive growth encouraged Sequoia and Artist Capital as a capital venture to pour additional funds of $8 million into YouTube in April 2006. YouTube’s operations are getting better, the results obtained are getting bigger. YouTube is increasingly unstoppable.
3. Bought by Google
The increasing popularity of YouTube is accompanied by the emergence of various new problems. YouTube requires more computers and a more sophisticated broadband internet connection. The company is also facing issues with copyright claims.
YouTube also needs to maximize the commercialization of its products. These conditions accumulated and at a certain time, Steve Chen Hurley, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim were encouraged to sell YouTube. This big decision will be a milestone for them and all of us.
In October 2006, the giant American technology company, Google Inc. bought YouTube in stock for $1.65 billion. If converted into current rupiah, this value is equivalent to 23 trillion rupiah. This fantastic figure makes the transaction the second largest acquisition ever carried out by Google.
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The Story of the Founders of Youtube
1. Chad Hurley
This man, born January 24 1977, has the full name Chad Meredith Hurley. His father, Don, is a financial consultant. While his mother, Joann Hurley, is a teacher.
He grew up in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, United States. He is the second of three siblings. His older sister is named Heather and his younger brother is named Brent.
Since childhood, he has shown a high interest in the world of art. These interests even tend to be extreme. He often uses his time to study painting, sculpting and designing.
However, this interest is slowly but surely shifting to the world of technology and business. This change in interest shifted his focus to building a business and entering the world of technology.
Chad Hurley represents Twin Valley High School’s cross country running program. In 1992 and 1994, he won the State Cup title. He completed his studies in art majoring in Graphic Design and Printmaking from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, United States.
After graduating from Indiana University, Chad applied for a job at a newly founded company operating in the financial sector, namely Paypal. Chad got his first assignment to design a Paypal logo as proof of his portfolio. If you look at the Paypal logo now, that’s the logo designed by Chad Hurley.
Personally, Chad is an intelligent and creative person. He learned many things about technology independently. His talent for managing a business can be seen in his ability to commercialize his artistic works.
Technological abilities, sharp business instincts, and a honed artistic spirit are a beautiful combination for Chad. He exploited his potential to make money independently. While he was in college, he succeeded in selling services for building websites, games and animation.
Chad is a friendly person. However, he does not easily open up to many people. He is more closed.
Chad is the person who became the first CEO of YouTube. After being purchased by Google, Chad acquired 694,087 Google shares directly and 41,232 additional shares. The shares were valued at $345.6 million at the close of trading on February 7, 2007.
In October 2010, he stepped down from his position as CEO of YouTube. Even though he stepped down as CEO, he stated that he was ready to commit to becoming YouTube’s next advisor. YouTube’s leadership was continued by Salar Kamangar.
Chad was reportedly the main investor in the US F1 team, which was one of the members of the F1 car racing event in 2010. However, unfortunately, the team eventually disbanded for no known reason. Chad reportedly still wants to be involved in the F1 industry through other teams.
Chad seems to be interested in investing in sports. He is reportedly the co-owner of the Major Soccer League (MLS) Football Club and the Los Angeles Football Club. Not only that, he also explored business in the world of basketball with one of the NBA league teams, the Golden State Warriors.
For his family life, he is married to Kathy Clark. She is the daughter of Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Jim Clark. Their marriage brought two children.
2. Steve Chen
Steve Shih Chen is one of the founders of YouTube who comes from Taipei, Taiwan. He is also the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of YouTube. This man, born 25 August 1978, was motivated to succeed after people predicted that he would never be successful.
He still remembers the incident very well. At the age of six, his mother took Chen to a fortune teller. Chen was bothered by the fortune teller’s words and they kept ringing in his head.
He does not accept that his fate must be determined by other people. Fate seemed to be on Chen’s side. When he was eight years old, his family emigrated to the United States.
He then attended high school at John Hersey High School, continuing on to Illinois Math and Science Academy. For higher education, he decided to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study computer science.
After graduating from the University of Illinois, Chen worked at Paypal. Yes, he is in the same office as Chad. Not only that, Chen also served as a senior engineer at Facebook. However, because he wanted to focus on developing YouTube, he resigned from the company created by Mark Zuckerberg.
In June 2006, Chen was named one of the 50 most influential people of the era by Business 2.0. We all need to know that Business 2.0 is a magazine that discusses developments in the world of business in the world. This coronation cannot be separated from Chen’s role in building YouTube into a company with a large valuation.
After YouTube was bought by Google, Chen owned 625,366 shares of Google stock and an additional 68,721. That amount was equivalent to $326 million at the time. A fantastic value.
On the next occasion, Chen worked again with Chad Hurley. This time they agreed to jointly pioneer the AVOS System. The company was ultimately able to acquire Delicious from Yahoo! Inc.
Chen’s achievements don’t stop there. In 2011, he was awarded the honor of 15 Asian Scientists To Watch by Asian Scientist Magazine. Amazingly, this award proves that apart from being good at business, he is also skilled in the field of computer technology.
In 2016, Chen is known to have launched an online site which he named Nom. This site is a live cooking platform targeted at culinary lovers. Unfortunately, this company was deemed not very profitable so Chen decided to close it in 2017.
Currently, he is known to be starting a start-up hedge fund company called Draco Capital Macro Quant Fund. In 2021, the company has raised $50 million in funding with a target of $200 million. This company operates in the investment sector that utilizes artificial intelligence ( AI).
In 2009, Chen married a Korean Google product marketing manager named Park Ji Hyun (now known as Jamie Chen). Both live in San Francisco with their children. Chen’s family is known as a supporter of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and as such his wife is believed to be a member of the museum’s board of trustees.
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3. Jawed Karim
The last founder of YouTube is Jawed Karim. This man of Bangladeshi descent was born in Merseburg, East Germany in 1979. A year later, his parents crossed the Berlin Wall to move to West Germany. In 1922, his family emigrated to the United States.
Even though they are both founders of YouTube, Karim is not as famous as Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. This Muslim figure is rarely talked about by many people because he doesn’t like the spotlight shone by the media. Meanwhile, his two friends are known as successful figures in pioneering start-ups.
Meanwhile, Karim often hides behind the scenes. He prefers technical work in coding and computerization so he rarely appears in public. So it’s not surprising that not many people know his name.
He grew up in a family of researchers. His Bangladeshi father, Naimul Karim, is a researcher at the multinational company 3M. Meanwhile, his German mother, Christine Karim, is also a biochemistry research professor at the University of Minnesota.
Young Karim studied at Central High School in Saint Paul Minnesota. After graduating from this school, Karim continued his higher education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Computer Science. He had to stop studying before graduating so he could work at Paypal.
Not long after, he resumed his studies and managed to get a bachelor’s degree in 2004. He and his two friends agreed to create an online dating site called YouTube. After YouTube was founded, he deepened his computer science by studying for a master’s degree at Stanford University.
Apart from being a co-founder, Karim is also the first YouTuber to upload videos on the platform. As we said at the beginning of the discussion, Karim uploaded a video with the title Me at The Zoo. At that time, he was in front of the elephant cage.
After YouTube was bought by Google, Karim received 137,443 shares with a value of $64 million according to the closing trading price at that time. In 2007, it was estimated that the value of his shares was $1 billion. A fantastic growth figure.
Currently, Karim is reportedly one of YouTube’s advisors. He also founded a funding company which he named Youniversity Karim Ventures. This institution aims to help students and alumni in developing their businesses.
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Conclusion
Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim are three young people who dare to achieve their dreams. They are able to combine talent, knowledge, passion, belief and hard work into a neat line to realize their own hopes. They believe in their own hopes and abilities.
Their decision to leave a stable job at Paypal was not an easy one. Moreover, they were previous employees there. However, they remain confident in establishing a platform whose future is still unclear.
Not only that, their ability to survive in bitter times deserves a thumbs up. This mentality is what entrepreneurs need most. And it has been proven that their persistence and patience have led YouTube to become such a big company that Google is interested in buying it at a fantastic price.
Previously, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion. Now, it is reported that YouTube’s revenue in three months has reached $5 billion or the equivalent of 68.8 trillion rupiah. In 2019, YouTube’s annual revenue reached $15.15 billion or the equivalent of 208.1 trillion rupiah.
Mudalovers, our review of the founder of YouTube has arrived at the end. Mudabicara never tires of accompanying you with our selection of books.