Can you imagine life without YouTube? It found its feet soon enough by making a start in 2005 when three Confinity ex-employees decided to create it. There was another similar site in those days called stupidvideos.com. The names of the founding ex-employees of Confinity were Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen. Confinity was known for its PayPal payment service in Silicon Valley. PayPal was pioneered by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. PayPal team was considered A-team, whereas the YouTube was perhaps the B-team at Confinity. Comparatively the B team was easy going and ‘not out to conquer the world.’

YouTube had its ups and downs. In early days, it started Flickr, a photo uploading site, which was later taken over by Yahoo.

Karim left YouTube early. The other too nurtured it. They rapidly tested one idea after the other. It was an easy platform. However, it discouraged porn. Videos were being uploaded by people with a desire to exhibit or be be in self-love. The audience too had similar sensibilities. YouTube made a mark with its user-generated content. The expenses of running the site were put on Hurley’s credit card. There was money crunch. Hurley roped in Roel of Both, a former colleague in PayPal. He was then working for Sequoia Capital. Sequoia invested $3.5 million which stabilised YouTube.

Google video was a rival video sharing platform. It was not picking up. Google put the videos on Google.com, but still could not catch up YouTube.

YouTube had become an attractive business and it waited for offer from Google and Yahoo. Google ultimately acquired it, despite its own video offering.

There were integration issues initially. Google brought its algorithms and revenue ideas to strengthen YouTube. Google had fiefdom culture. Ms.Wojcicki could not add flair to YouTube. YouTube was maturing and a cash cow. Still, there were no major innovations. The short video format creators diverted to TikTok and Instagram. Still YouTube continues as a behemoth .The lady stepped down from YouTube.

YouTube is an important offering from Silicon Valley.