YouTube turns 20: What happened to Jawed Karim, founder and author of the first video?
Two decades after creating the video platform, little is known about his life. Originally from Germany and naturalized as an American, his first clip marked a before and after in the history of the internet
The first video in YouTube history lasts just 19 seconds. In 2005, Jawed Karim, co-founder of the platform with Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, stood in front of a camera at the San Diego Zoo to talk about the trunks of the park’s elephants. Although the original idea was to set up a platform for romantic dates, homemade clips proved to have another kind of potential. At least, that’s what Google thought. The technology company acquired the platform for $1.65 billion a year later, and Time magazine lauded it as the great invention of the time. On the 20th anniversary of its launch, YouTube continues to enjoy huge popularity that translates into earnings that exceeded $50 billion in 2024, thanks to advertising and the more than 114 million channels it currently has.
