The ENTIRE History of YouTube in 18 Minutes or more

How YouTube started is stranger than the legend: it began as a video dating site called “Tune In, Hook Up,” and nobody wanted it. Less than two years later, Google bought it for $1.65 billion. In this video: the failed Craigslist ad that offered $20 for a video, Jawed Karim’s 19-second “Me at the zoo,” and how three former PayPal employees working above a pizzeria beat Google Video, even though Google had far more cash. You’ll also see why the famous dinner-party origin story is probably a legend, how a PayPal-style trick (embedding videos on MySpace) fueled the growth, and how Sequoia Capital bet on a company that was burning through bandwidth. Then comes the twist: the executive who ran Google’s own competing video site was the one who pushed Google to buy YouTube. We also cover the Viacom lawsuit and how YouTube went from a “lawsuit magnet” to the platform the studios depend on. 00:00 The Dating Site That Failed 02:41 Competing Against Google and MySpace 05:40 The First Video and Early Growth 08:56 Going Viral and Copyright Wars 12:37 The Billion-Dollar Google Acquisition 17:11 YouTube Today and the Founders' Fate Subscribe to Billionaire Stories for more origin stories of the brands and people that shaped the world.