History
YouTube was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Jawid Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen. Hurley and Chen developed the idea for the company over a dinner party in San Francisco, but Karim was the first to plant the seed. The idea first came to Karim after Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" and the Asian tsunami. Tune In Hook Up, an early dating version of the site, drew little attention and fizzled. The three decided to split up the work of the site based on their specialties: Hurley designed the site's interface and logo and Chen and Karim split up the logistics of the site. Hurley became CEO and Chen became the chief technology officer. Karim left YouTube in 2007 for graduate computer studies at Stanford and took a smaller ownership than the other two while still advising the growing number of employees. The founders sold the site to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
Sources: USA Today You Tube
Presented by: Cassandra Danell, Sasha London, Dana Kimble, Ryan Mara
