Launched in early 2005 by former PayPal employees as a quirky, user-centric video site, YouTube is now a global media powerhouse and home to movie trailers, video podcasts, livestreams, and much more.
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In February 2005, YouTube was launched by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. Their idea was to build a platform to support the convenient sharing of videos online, a relatively novel idea in the days of cable TV and early social media.
YouTube began as a quirky site where users uploaded funny, random videos—a do-it-yourself television service. Today, it’s a global media powerhouse and home to everything from movie trailers to video podcasts, livestreams, and much more. Want to learn more about the streaming giant? Check out our 5-minute explainer here.
Many brands pay influencers to advertise their products or services on social media. Platforms such as YouTube, Substack, and Twitch also provide revenue-sharing opportunities for their top creators. Known as the creator economy, it's a system driven by individuals who produce online content for audiences that can be monetized.
In 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65B, only two years after its launch. Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture firms, was an early investor in the streaming video platform, seeing it as the next step in the evolution of user-generated content that flourished online during the mid-2000s.
Google's acquisition of YouTube was a game-changer, but was it a good deal in retrospect? Here, the hosts of the popular "Acquired" podcast explore whether the deal measures up to the mythology, starting with a memo from early investor Sequoia Capital.
As consumers continue to shift their viewing activity away from traditional cable and broadcast TV, they’re spending an increasing amount of time streaming content, much of it on YouTube. In fact, Nielsen data from August 2025, shows that YouTube accounted for 13.1% of US screen time, compared to Netflix’s 8.7%.
Some 500 hours of content are posted to YouTube every minute. The video at the beginning of that massive growing stream of content is this one—“Me at the Zoo.” Uploaded in April 2005 by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, it shows him at the San Diego Zoo talking about elephants.
YouTube has become one of the world's leading entertainment platforms almost entirely on the back of users who upload their own content. An estimated 3.7 million new videos get uploaded to YouTube each day, but only a small, very popular fraction are able to make money from their content.
Initially aired on television, the 2005 "Saturday Night Live" digital short featuring Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell took off on YouTube, becoming one of the platform's first viral videos. The song may be a joke, but its success underscored how online video could extend the lifespan of regularly televised content.
Psy's "Gangnam Style" was the first music video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. The song and video catalyzed the "Korean wave," bringing K-pop into the global mainstream. As of July 2025, it had over 5 billion views on the platform.
Art, music, sports, entertainment, movies, and many other subjects—these elements define who we are as a society and how we express ourselves as a culture. Take a deep dive into the topics shaping our shared norms, values, institutions, and more.