HISTORY OF YOUTUBE

YouTube's early headquarters in San Mateo

 YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Prior to PayPal, Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The domain name "YouTube.com" was activated on February 15, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months. The creators offered the public a preview of the site in May 2005, six months before YouTube made its official debut. Like many technology start-ups, YouTube was started as an angel-funded enterprise from a makeshift office in a garage. In November 2005, venture firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million; additionally, Roelof Botha, partner of the firm and former CFO of PayPal, joined the YouTube board of directors. In April 2006, Sequoia and Artis Capital Management put an additional $8 million into the company, which had experienced huge popular growth within its first few months.

During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest growing websites on the Web, and was ranked the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far out pacing even MySpace's rate of growth. According to a July 16, 2006 survey, 100 million video clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours. The website averages nearly 20 million visitors per month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant.YouTube's pre-eminence in the online video market is substantial. According to the website Hitwise.com, YouTube commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.

YouTube's headquarters in San Bruno from 2006 to 2010

On October 9, 2006, it was announced that the company would be purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion in stock. The purchase agreement between Google and YouTube came after YouTube presented three agreements with media companies in an attempt to escape the threat of copyright-infringement lawsuits. YouTube will continue operating independently, with its co-founders and 67 employees working within the company. The deal to acquire YouTube closed on November 13, and was, at the time, Google's second largest acquisition. Google’s February 7th, 2007 SEC filing revealed the breakdown of profits for YouTube’s investors after the sale to Google. At the time of reporting Sequoia Capital’s shares were valued at more than $442 million, Chad Hurley’s at more than $345 million, Steve Chen’s at more than $326 million, Artis Capital Management at more than $83 million, and Jawed Karim’s at more than $64 million.