It all started on February 14, 2005, when three former PayPal employees—Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim—came together to found YouTube, setting in motion a revolution in how people around the world would share and consume online video.
So what sparked the idea? The founders wanted to strip away the complexity of sharing videos on the internet. They envisioned a platform where anyone—regardless of technical skill—could effortlessly upload, watch, and share video content with others. That vision became real when the domain name "YouTube.com" was registered on February 14, 2005, and from that moment forward, everything changed.
Early Development
With the domain secured, the trio threw themselves into building out the site's technical foundation. Then came a milestone moment: on April 23, 2005, Jawed Karim posted what would become the first video ever uploaded to YouTube—a modest 19-second clip called "Me at the Zoo," filmed at the San Diego Zoo with Karim himself on camera. Simple as it was, that little piece of footage represented the very first spark of user-generated content on a platform destined to reshape media forever.
Growth accelerated in November 2005, when Sequoia Capital injected $3.5 million into the company, fueling critical development and helping the platform scale up. By December, YouTube officially opened its doors to the public—and users flooded in. The ability to freely share and explore an endless variety of video content proved irresistible, and the platform's meteoric rise was underway.
Acquisition by Google
On October 9, 2006, Google snapped up YouTube in a deal worth $1.65 billion in stock. The acquisition gave the platform access to the resources and infrastructure it needed to grow even further, cementing its status as the dominant force in online video sharing.
What began as a humble startup in 2005 has since evolved into a truly global phenomenon. As of January 2024, YouTube boasts over 2.7 billion monthly active users, with viewers collectively consuming more than one billion hours of video every single day.