who-owns-youtube

Who Owns YouTube?

Acquired by Google, in 2006, for $1.65 billion, YouTube is now worth many times over. In 2022, YouTube generated over $29 billion in revenue from advertising alone. YouTube is part of Google (now named Alphabet), and as such, it is owned by main Google’s Alphabet shareholders and is one of the fastest-growing segments for the company.

AspectDescriptionAnalysisExamples
Products and ServicesYouTube provides a platform for users to upload, view, and share videos. Users can access a wide variety of content, including music videos, vlogs, tutorials, entertainment, and more. The platform also offers features like video monetization through ads, live streaming, premium subscription services (YouTube Premium), and YouTube TV, a subscription-based live TV streaming service. Additionally, YouTube has tools for creators to manage and analyze their content, including YouTube Studio and YouTube Analytics.YouTube’s core offering is a video-sharing platform with diverse content categories. Monetization through ads, live streaming, YouTube Premium, and YouTube TV diversifies revenue streams. Creator tools such as YouTube Studio and YouTube Analytics empower content creators. YouTube caters to both viewers and content creators, creating a symbiotic ecosystem.Video-sharing platform with diverse content, video monetization through ads, live streaming, YouTube Premium subscription, YouTube TV live TV streaming service, creator tools (YouTube Studio, YouTube Analytics), symbiotic ecosystem for viewers and content creators.
Revenue StreamsYouTube generates revenue primarily through advertising. It offers various advertising formats, including display ads, overlay ads, skippable video ads (TrueView), non-skippable video ads, and more. Advertisers pay for ad placements on the platform, and YouTube shares a portion of this revenue with content creators. Additionally, YouTube earns income from premium subscription services (YouTube Premium) and YouTube TV subscriptions.The main source of revenue for YouTube is advertising, with various formats catering to advertisers’ needs. Revenue-sharing agreements with content creators incentivize high-quality content. Premium subscription services (YouTube Premium) and YouTube TV subscriptions serve as additional revenue streams. YouTube balances free and premium content offerings.Revenue from advertising (display ads, overlay ads, TrueView, non-skippable video ads, etc.), revenue-sharing agreements with content creators, income from premium subscription services (YouTube Premium), revenue generated from YouTube TV subscriptions, balanced free and premium content offerings.
Customer SegmentsYouTube serves a diverse customer base, including viewers who access content across various categories and creators who upload videos to the platform. Viewers encompass a global audience seeking entertainment, education, information, and more. Creators consist of individuals, artists, musicians, businesses, and organizations looking to share their content and engage with their audience. Advertisers also form a significant customer segment, utilizing YouTube’s advertising platform to reach their target audience.Customer segments for YouTube encompass viewers, content creators, and advertisers. Viewers consist of a global audience seeking diverse content. Content creators include individuals, artists, musicians, businesses, and organizations sharing their content. Advertisers use YouTube’s advertising platform to reach their target audience. YouTube’s ecosystem caters to the needs of these diverse customer segments.Viewers seeking diverse content, content creators (individuals, artists, musicians, businesses, organizations), advertisers utilizing YouTube’s advertising platform, a diverse ecosystem meeting the needs of various customer segments.
Distribution ChannelsYouTube primarily operates through its website and mobile apps, offering viewers easy access to a vast library of videos. Creators can upload content directly to the platform. YouTube’s advertising platform allows advertisers to create and manage ad campaigns. YouTube also partners with various devices and platforms for broader distribution, including smart TVs, gaming consoles, and streaming devices.Distribution channels for YouTube revolve around its website and mobile apps, accessible for viewers to browse and view content. Creators can upload videos directly to the platform. Advertisers use YouTube’s advertising platform for campaign management. Partnerships with devices and platforms expand distribution to smart TVs, gaming consoles, and streaming devices, enhancing accessibility.Website and mobile apps for viewers to browse and view content, direct video uploads for creators, advertising platform for campaign management by advertisers, partnerships with devices and platforms for broader distribution to smart TVs, gaming consoles, and streaming devices, enhanced accessibility.
Key PartnershipsYouTube collaborates with various partners to enhance its content and reach. These partnerships may involve music labels and artists for official music video uploads, news organizations for news content, movie studios for trailers and promotional videos, sports leagues and teams for live sports broadcasts, and advertisers for targeted ad campaigns. YouTube also engages with content creators, providing resources, support, and monetization opportunities through the YouTube Partner Program.Collaborations with music labels, artists, news organizations, movie studios, sports leagues, teams, and advertisers enrich YouTube’s content library and advertising opportunities. Engagement with content creators fosters a thriving creator community, with resources, support, and monetization through the YouTube Partner Program. These partnerships contribute to YouTube’s extensive content and user engagement.Collaborations with music labels, artists, news organizations, movie studios, sports leagues, teams, advertisers, and content creators for content enrichment, advertising opportunities, and support through the YouTube Partner Program, contributions to a vast content library and user engagement.
Key ResourcesYouTube’s key resources include its online platform and technology infrastructure, a vast library of user-generated and official content, a global user base of viewers and content creators, advertising partnerships and tools, and partnerships with music labels, news organizations, and other content providers. The YouTube brand and its commitment to user-generated content are significant resources that drive engagement.Key resources for YouTube encompass its online platform and technology infrastructure, an extensive library of user-generated and official content, a global and diverse user base, advertising partnerships and tools, and collaborations with music labels, news organizations, and content providers. The YouTube brand and its emphasis on user-generated content are influential resources fostering user engagement.Online platform and technology infrastructure, extensive content library, global and diverse user base, advertising partnerships and tools, collaborations with music labels, news organizations, and content providers, YouTube brand, and emphasis on user-generated content as influential resources driving user engagement.
Cost StructureYouTube incurs costs related to its technology infrastructure, including data storage and video streaming. Content acquisition expenses involve licensing agreements with music labels and content providers. YouTube pays content creators through revenue-sharing agreements. Additional costs include employee salaries and benefits, marketing and promotional campaigns, and investments in platform development and moderation to ensure a safe environment. Costs can vary with content acquisition and platform maintenance.Costs associated with YouTube’s operations encompass technology infrastructure maintenance (data storage, video streaming), content acquisition expenses through licensing agreements with music labels and content providers, revenue-sharing agreements with content creators, employee salaries and benefits, marketing and promotional efforts, and investments in platform development and moderation for a secure environment. Costs can fluctuate with content acquisition and platform maintenance requirements.Costs related to technology infrastructure maintenance (data storage, video streaming), content acquisition expenses through licensing agreements, revenue-sharing agreements with content creators, employee salaries and benefits, marketing and promotional initiatives, investments in platform development and moderation for a secure environment, cost management influenced by content acquisition and platform maintenance needs.
Competitive AdvantageYouTube’s competitive advantage lies in its vast library of user-generated and official content, spanning a wide range of categories and languages. The platform’s accessibility, global reach, and user engagement make it a dominant player in the online video-sharing space. YouTube’s advertising capabilities and revenue-sharing model attract content creators and advertisers. Its premium subscription services (YouTube Premium and YouTube TV) offer additional revenue streams and ad-free viewing experiences.YouTube’s competitive advantage stems from its expansive content library, accommodating diverse categories and languages. Accessibility, global presence, and user engagement establish its dominance in online video sharing. Advertising capabilities and the revenue-sharing model appeal to content creators and advertisers. Premium subscription services diversify revenue streams and provide ad-free viewing experiences, enhancing the platform’s appeal.Expansive content library with diverse categories and languages, accessibility, global presence, and user engagement, dominance in online video sharing, advertising capabilities and revenue-sharing model attracting content creators and advertisers, premium subscription services providing additional revenue streams and ad-free viewing experiences, strengthened platform appeal.

History of the Google-YouTube deal

In a video dated October 10, 2006, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley officialized the news of the acquisition of YouTube, from Google, for $1.65 billion.

The third co-founder, Jawed Karim, was already out.

And yet the three co-founders all became multi-millionaires, making probably $300 million each for Chen and Hurley and around $66 million for Karim.

At the time, Google was trying to launch its video service called Google Video.

Yet, Google, while already a tech giant back then, could not figure out how to make Google Video as successful as YouTube.

YouTube was indeed a rocket ship, and what concerned them most, the Google’s founders, Brin and Page, was that YouTube was also used as a search engine for video.

With video becoming a dominant format for the Internet by 2006, Google was quite concerned about being unable to keep up with YouTube’s growing quickly.

YouTube, on his side, was executed exceptionally well, backed by some of the prominent Silicon Valley VCs. Indeed, Sequoia backed YouTube through Roelof Botha.

Botha was CFO at PayPal before he joined Sequoia. He was a PayPal Mafia member.

The YouTube co-founders, looking for money to finance the operations that, since that point, had been running on Chen’s credit cards, turned to Botha, which they knew from PayPal.

Indeed, YouTube’s co-founders were former PayPal team members.

After PayPal had been acquired by eBay, Chen, Hurley, and Karim left to start their own company, which would later become YouTube.

By November 2005, Google, through Larry Page, had already started to seriously look into acquiring YouTube:

Source: House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee (2020) – Formatted by Internal Tech Emails on Twitter

Thus, by February 7, 2006, the acquisition of YouTube by Google gets on the CEO’s desk as a priority.

Source: House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee (2020) – Formatted by Internal Tech Emails on Twitter

In an initial consideration, Google is considering an offer for YouTube of $50 million.

We were in February 2006, YouTube was burning cash, it wasn’t generating revenues, and yet Google would eventually offer much more to secure it.

However, by February 2006, Google kept looking into ways to partner up, without buying YouTube.

In fact, when Google first proposed the deal to YouTube, things didn’t move forward, as YouTube’s founding team was looking for “the myspace deal.”

In fact, at the time, back in July 2005, News Corp., the company – at the time – owned by the business shark Rupert Murdoch, had acquired MySpace for $580 million in cash, setting an incredible precedent.

For Google’s executive team, that was way too expensive.

In fact, at the time, Google thought it could still figure out videos with its Google Video.

Yet, as months went by, Google Video didn’t gain as much traction as the executive team thought.

And as Yahoo showed up, things got way more interesting.

Google’s executive team was an incredible deal-maker, driven by its co-founder’s Page and Brin.

Meaning they knew when the timing was right to close a deal before a competitor like Yahoo stole it.

Eventually, the deal was closed at $1.65 billion, and YouTube became part of Google.

youtube-ad-revenue
YouTube, by 2022, generated over $29 billion in advertising revenues.

Thus, if we take YouTube alone, the company might be worth over $300 billion in revenue, which is astonishing and would represent an over 150x potential return for Google on this acquisition.

However, for one thing, it’s very hard to spin off the value of YouTube without Google’s advertising machine.

In fact, a key thing to understand, integrating YouTube wasn’t an easy fit, and while Google has managed to pull this off, this could have gone wrong in many possible ways.

Had YouTube continued without Google, the question is whether the company would have survived, given the many copyright issues it faced back then.

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).

Today YouTube is definitely one of the most successful media platforms on the Internet and the only one able to successfully beat TikTok at its own game!

Breaking down YouTube Business Model

Today YouTube has become a successful advertising machine.

how-does-youtube-make-money
YouTube was acquired for almost $1.7 billion in 2006 by Google. It makes money through advertising and subscription revenues. YouTube advertising network is part of Google Ads, and it reported more than $29B in revenues by 2022. YouTube also makes money with its paid memberships and premium content.

YouTube is one of the most popular sites on earth, with over 33 billion visits in March 2023.

YouTtub is very popular worldwide, even though over 20% of its traffic comes fro the US.

The most interesting aspect of YouTube is its popularity among young cohorts. People between 18-34 as the ones that most use the platform.

Key Highlights of the Google-YouTube Deal:

  • Acquisition Price: Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, making the three co-founders multi-millionaires.
  • Google Video vs. YouTube: Google was trying to launch its own video service called Google Video, but it couldn’t match YouTube’s success.
  • Concerns of Google’s Founders: Google’s founders, Brin and Page, were concerned about YouTube’s rapid growth and its use as a video search engine.
  • Backing from Silicon Valley VCs: YouTube was backed by prominent investors, including Sequoia Capital.
  • Former PayPal Team: The YouTube co-founders were former PayPal team members who left to start their own venture.
  • Initial Offer and Negotiations: Google initially considered an offer of $50 million for YouTube but eventually closed the deal at $1.65 billion.
  • YouTube’s Value and Revenue: By 2022, YouTube generated over $29 billion in advertising revenues, making it a significant contributor to Google’s business.
  • Integration Challenges: Integrating YouTube into Google was not an easy fit, and Google had to address copyright issues and transition YouTube into a successful discovery video platform.
  • YouTube’s Business Model: YouTube generates revenue through advertising and subscription revenues, with its advertising network being part of Google Ads.
  • Popularity and Global Reach: YouTube is one of the most popular sites globally, with over 33 billion visits in March 2023, and it attracts a significant young audience, especially those aged 18-34.

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Who owns Google?

who-owns-google
Google is primarily owned by its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have more than 51% voting power. Other individual shareholders comprise John Doerr (1.5%), a venture capitalist and early investor in Google, and CEO, Sundar Pichai. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has 4.2% voting power. The most prominent institutional shareholders are mutual funds BlackRock and The Vanguard Group, with 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.

YouTube Competitors

youtube-competitors
YouTube is the most popular online video platform, a hybrid between a video search engine and a social media platform with a continuous feed prompted by social interactions and engagement. The platform is so popular that YouTube.com is the second most visited website. After being acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion, the platform now boasts over 2 billion registered users. Collectively, these users upload 500 hours of video every minute. The platform competes with other video engines like Vimeo and Dailymotion and social platforms like IGTV, TikTok, and Twitch.

Digital Advertising Industry

advertising-industry
The digital advertising industry has become a multi-billion industry dominated by a few key tech players. The industry’s advertising dollars are also fragmented across several small players and publishers across the web. Most of it is consolidated within brands like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Bing, Twitter, TikTok, which is growing very quickly, and Pinterest.

Google Business Model

google-revenue-breakdown
Alphabet generated over $282B from Google search and others, $32.78 billion from the Network members (Adsense and AdMob), $29.2 billion from YouTube Ads, $26.28B from the Cloud, and $29 billion from other sources (Google Play, Hardware devices, and other services).

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Who Owns OpenAI

who-owns-openai
OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that transitioned into a for-profit organization in 2019, which comprised an entity called OpenAI LP and the non-profit parent foundation OpenAI. The lab, which was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and various others, has a core focus on the development of friendly AI that benefits society as a whole. Yet now has primarily evolved as a capped-for-profit entity with an exclusive commercial license to Microsoft.

Who Owns Airbnb

who-owns-airbnb
Its co-founders primarily own Airbnb: Brian Chesky, with 76,407,686 Class B shares, which gives him 29.1% of ownership; Nathan Blecharczyk, with 232,306 Class A and 64,646,713 Class B, which give him 25.3%; and Joe Gebbia, which has 5,113,865 Class A and 58,023,452 Class B, which give him 22.9% ownership.

Who Owns Google

who-owns-google
Google is primarily owned by its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have more than 51% voting power. Other individual shareholders comprise John Doerr (1.5%), a venture capitalist and early investor in Google, and CEO, Sundar Pichai. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has 4.2% voting power. The most prominent institutional shareholders are mutual funds BlackRock and The Vanguard Group, with 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.

Who Owns Facebook

who-owns-facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is the largest shareholder in the company. Zuckerberg retains ownership and control of the company. Like Google, Facebook has issued two common stocks, Class A and Class B. The holders of Class B common stocks are entitled to ten votes per share, and holders of our Class A common stocks are entitled to one vote per share. Mark Zuckerberg has a voting power of 56.9%; he’s the primary decision-maker. Other individual investors comprise Sheryl Sandberg, Christopher Cox, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.

Who Owns Apple

who-owns-apple
As of 2023, major Apple shareholders comprised Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway with 5.73% of the company’s stock (valued at over $130 billion). Followed by other individual shareholders like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, with about 3.3 million shares, Artur Levinson, chairman of Apple, with over 4.5 million shares, and others.

Who Owns Amazon

who-owns-amazon
With 64,588,418 shares, Jeff Bezos is the major individual investor. Owning 12.7% of the company. Other top individual investors comprise Amazon’s CEO Andy Jessy, with 94,729 shares. Top institutional investors include mutual funds like The Vanguard Group (6.6% ownership) and BlackRock (5.7% ownership). 

Who Owns Microsoft

who-owns-microsoft
Major shareholders comprise co-founder Bill Gates, who stepped down from the company’s board in 2020, which is why these shares are no longer publicly reported. In 2019, Gates still owned a stake of 103 million stocks, which accounted for 1.34% of the company’s ownership (worth over $23 billion in January 2023). Other individual shareholders comprise Satya Nadella, the company’s CEO, Brad Smith (former president), Jean-Philippe Courtois (EVP), and Amy Hood (former CFO).

Who Owns Tesla

who-owns-tesla
By 2022, most of Tesla’s shares are still owned by Elon Musk, among the company’s co-founders and the CEO. Elon Musk is the top individual investor, with a 23.5% stake in the company, equivalent to over 244 million shares. Musk is followed by Lawrence Ellison (founder of Oracle), with a 1.5% company stake. Ellison also sits on Tesla’s board. And Antonio Gracias, among the company’s first investors, has over 1.6 million shares. Other institutional investors and mutual funds like The Vanguard Group (6%), Blackrock (5.1%), and Capital Ventures International also have a good chunk of the company’s stocks.

Who Owns PayPal

who-owns-paypal
PayPal was first founded in 1998; it was called Confinity (among its founders was Peter Thiel); later, it merged with X.com, its major competitor, founded by Elon Musk (which would become known for other companies like Tesla and SpaceX). From this merger, PayPal was born. In 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion. eBay spun off PayPal in 2015, which would be listed as an independent entity. Today PayPal owns brands like Braintree, Venmo, Xoom, and iZettle.

Who Owns Netflix

who-owns-netflix
Netflix’s largest individual shareholder is Reed Hastings, co-founder, and former CEO of the company, now Chairperson of Netflix, with a 1.7% stake, valued at over $2.4 billion in February 2023. Other significant individual shareholders comprise Jay C. Hoag, the company’s directors since 1999, and Ted Sarandos, former chief content officer and now Chief Executive Officer of Netflix. Major institutional shareholders comprise The Vanguard Group (7.55% ownership), BlackRock (6.58% ownership), and Capital Research Global Investments (5.84% ownership).

Who Owns TikTok

who-owns-tiktok
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet technology company owning several content platforms worldwide (Douyin, Toutiao, Xigua Video, Helo, Lark, Babe). Bytedance passed the $300 billion private market valuation by 2022, making around $58 billion in revenue in 2022, over $4 billion from TikTok.

Who Owns YouTube

who-owns-youtube
Acquired by Google, in 2006, for $1.65 billion, YouTube is now worth many times over. In 2022, YouTube generated over $29 billion in revenue from advertising alone. YouTube is part of Google (now named Alphabet), and as such, it is owned by main Google’s Alphabet shareholders and is one of the fastest-growing segments for the company.

Who Owns Twitter

who-owns-twitter
As of April 25th, 2022, Elon Musk tried to take over Twitter. Musk tried to purchase the company at $54.20 per share, or about $44 billion. The deal finally closed by October 27th, 2022, and Elon Musk became the largest shareholder.

Who Owns Spotify

who-owns-spotify
The multi-billion music streaming company Spotify is primarily owned by its founders, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. As of 2023, Daniel Ek has 16.5% ownership of ordinary shares and 31.7% of the voting power. Martin Lorentzon has 10.9% of ordinary shares and 42.6% of the voting power. Another key shareholder is Baillie Gifford & Co, a Scottish-based money management firm, followed by Morgan Stanley, T. Rowe Price, and Tencent.

Who Owns Nvidia

who-owns-nvidia
The top individual shareholder of NVIDIA is Jen-Hsun Huang, founder, and CEO of the company, with 87,521,722 shares giving him 3.50% ownership. Followed by Mark A. Stevens, venture capitalist and a partner at S-Cubed Capital, who was part of the NVIDIA board in 2008 and previously served as a director from 1993 to 2006, with 6,258,803 shares. Institutional investors comprise The Vanguard Group, Inc, with 196,015,550, owning 7.83%. BlackRock, Inc., with 177,858,484, owns 7.10%. And FMR LLC (Fidelity Institutional Asset Management) with 158,039,922, owning 6.31%.

Who Owns Uber

who-owns-uber
Uber’s principal individual shareholders comprise Yasir Al-Rumayyan (3.73%), the Governor of the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Dara Khosrowshahi, the founder and CEO of Uber. There is Morgan Stanley, with 5.12% ownership among the top institutional investors.

Who Owns Shopify

who-owns-shopify
The founder and CEO of Shopify, Tobias Lütke, owned or controlled 7,891,852 Class B multiple voting shares and 5,250 Class A subordinate voting shares, representing approximately 33.8% of the aggregate voting power attached to all of the Company’s outstanding voting shares. Another key stakeholder is John H. Phillips, an angel investor who placed an early bet on Shopify.

Who Owns Roblox

who-owns-roblox
Roblox is owned by David Baszucki and Gregory Baszucki, with a 2.3% and 2.6% stake, respectively. Anthony lee, managing partner at Altos Ventures, with a 15.3% stake.

Who Owns Twitch

who-owns-twitch
In 2014, Twitch was bought by Amazon for $970 million. Therefore Twitch is part of Amazon, comprising other subsidiaries bought over the years, like Audible, Whole Foods, and Zappos (in total, Amazon has 12 subsidiaries). Therefore, as of 2020, Twitch is a multi-billion dollar company, making money primarily via advertising through its video streaming platform (creators use Twitch today across many other verticals).

Who Owns Zoom

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Zoom’s principal private shareholders comprise Eric S. Yuan, a Chinese-American billionaire businessman that founded Zoom. Dan Scheinman, board member and angel investor in Zoom since the start, and Santiago Subotovsky, also an early investor in Zoom. Zoom follows a freeterprise business model where free accounts are channeled into enterprise customers.

Who Owns Activision

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In one of the largest deals in the business world, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion transaction. Making Microsoft the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. However, given the size of the deal, this is still under the scrutiny of regulators who need to approve it. If the deal goes through, Microsoft will become among the largest gaming companies in the world.

Who Owns Pixar

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Pixar is owned by The Walt Disney Company, which acquired it in 2006 in a $7.4 billion deal. Today Pixar is part of the Disney Empire. The principal shareholders of Disney comprise Robert Iger, CEO of the company, and institutional investors like The Vanguard Group and Blackrock.

Who Owns Salesforce

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Marc Benioff, Co-CEO of Salesforce, is the primary individual shareholder, with 3% of the company’s stock. Other main individual shareholders comprise Parker Harris, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, and Bret Taylor, former co-CEO. Major institutional shareholders include The Vanguard Group, Fidelity, and BlackRock.

Who Owns Slack

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In a $27.7 billion deal in 2021, Salesforce’s finalized the acquisition of Slack, which was integrated into Salesforce. Today Slack is still a product mostly independently managed by Salesforce, which incorporated some of its features within its platform. Entrepreneur Marc Benioff primarily owns salesforce.

Who Owns Snapchat

who-owns-snapchat
Evan Spiegel and Robert Cornelius Murphy are the co-founders and, respectively, CEO and CTO of Snapchat. Evan Spiegel owns 3% of Class A stocks, 25.7% of Class B stocks, and 53.4% of Class C stocks for a 53.2% voting power, whereas Robert Murphy owns 6% of Class A stocks, 25.7% of Class B stocks, and 46.6% of Class C stocks for a 46.6% voting power. Snapchat runs an advertising-based business model.

Who Owns Coinbase

who-owns-coinbase
Main individual shareholders comprise co-founders Brian Armstrong (59.5% voting power), Frederick Ernest Ehrsam (26.1% voting power), and other individual investors such as Surojit Chatterjee (current CPO “poached” from Google), Paul Grewal (former magistrate who joined Coinbase as Chief Legal Officer), and venture capitalists who early on invested on Coinbase, like Marc Andreessen (founder of a16z) and Fred Wilson (founder of Union Square Ventures), together with venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital and Union Square Ventures.

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