Born on October 28, 1979, Jawed Karim is an American entrepreneur and software engineer of German and Bangladeshi descent. Karim is one of the co-founders of YouTube and was also the first person to upload a video to the platform in April 2005. In the low-resolution clip titled “Me at the zoo”, Karim briefly talks about the benefit of an elephant’s long trunk.
Education and early career at PayPal
After graduating from high school in 1997, Karim became a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he studied computer science.
During his time at university, Karim was an intern at Silicon Graphics, Inc., where he worked on voxel data management for very large data sets.
His position involved work on the Visible Human Project, an initiative aiming to provide cross-sectional, two-dimensional images of the body to better visualize human anatomy.
In 2000, Karim received a letter to join a fledgling company called PayPal who was impressed with his work at Silicon Graphics.
He agonized over the decision for two weeks with the realization that accepting the offer would disrupt his studies.
Karim ultimately accepted the position and worked remotely toward his degree under a reduced workload, eventually graduating in 2004.
Karim meets Steve Chen and Chad Hurley
Whilst at PayPal, Karim met Steve Chen and Chad Hurley – the two men with whom he would found YouTube in 2006.
While accounts vary between the founders on how the idea for YouTube came about, Karim recalled that he was inspired after not being able to find the video of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s infamous performance at the 2004 Super Bowl.
He thus imagined a video-sharing platform where people could easily find the videos they were looking for. The rest, as they say, is history.
Further education and consulting
Karim played an important role in YouTube’s early history, but it was not a project he was overly interested in capitalizing on.
As a result, he decided to continue his education at Stanford University and earned a Masters in Computer Science in 2006. He worked as an advisor to YouTube before it was launched and thereafter became an informal consultant.
Given his preference to focus on his studies, Karim’s share of the company was much lower than the other two founders. Nevertheless, when YouTube was acquired by Google in 2006, his 137,443 shares were worth about $64 million.
Venture capital firm and philanthropy
Karim founded VC firm Youniversity Ventures (now YVentures) with partners Kevin Hartz and Keith Rabois in 2008.
The firm is perhaps best known for its early investment in Airbnb and other companies such as Reddit, Postmates, and Eventbrite. YVentures also offers consultancy services to promising start-ups in the tech sector.
Over the years, Karim has also been a prominent public speaker on technology-related topics and has expressed a desire to provide consultancy services for early-stage tech companies in countries such as Malaysia.
The YouTube advertising empire
Today YouTube is an advertising empire that generated almost $30 billion in ad revenue!
Thus, if we take YouTube alone, the company might be worth well over $300 billion in revenue.
However, it’s critical to point out that the reason why YouTube has become so successful is also thanks to the successful integration within Google, from two perspectives.
First, from a core product integration perspective, where YouTube has successfully transitioned to become the most popular video search engine on earth, Google’s team.
Indeed, that was not foregone at all at the time of Google’s acquisition of YouTube.
And while this acquisition represented probably one of the most successful ones in business history, Google’s team hat to work hard to make it work.
Indeed, YouTube had severe copyright issues, which Google had to solve early on.
In addition, Google has also successfully transitioned YouTube from a video search engine to a discovery video platform (more similar to TikTok than Google).
Second, from a revenue stream integration perspective, after making sure YouTube was solid as a product, Google successfully integrated it into its advertising machine, making of YouTube one of the most profitable segments for the company!
Key takeaways:
- Born on October 28, 1979, Jawed Karim is an American entrepreneur and software engineer of German and Bangladeshi descent.
- In 2000, Karim received a letter to join a fledgling company called PayPal who was impressed with his work at Silicon Graphics. At PayPal, Karim met Steve Chen and Chad Hurley with the trio founding YouTube in 2006.
- More interested in obtaining further education in computer science, Karim worked as an advisor to YouTube and then as an informal consultant after it launched. Upon graduating, he founded VC firm YVentures with notable investments including Airbnb and Postmates.
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