YouTube: The history and founding of the video platform

YouTube was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The platform was created to solve the technical difficulties of the early 2000s, such as slow upload speeds, inconsistent video formats, and the lack of smooth browser-based playback.

By focusing on a simple interface that allowed users to upload, stream, and share videos via links, the founders enabled non-experts to publish content without professional studios. A landmark moment in the platform's history was the upload of the first video, ‘Me at the zoo,’ featuring co-founder Jawed Karim.

Following rapid growth and exploding traffic, Google acquired YouTube in 2006, providing the necessary resources to manage high bandwidth and storage costs on a global scale.