Jawed Karim, a pivotal figure in the world of technology, renowned as the co-founder of YouTube. His journey from East Germany to Silicon Valley has been nothing short of remarkable.
Alongside his partners, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, Karim spearheaded the creation of YouTube, a platform that forever changed the way we engage with online video content.
But who is Jawed Karim? How and when did he get the idea to start YouTube? What is Jawed Karim’s net worth? If you’re wondering about all of that, we’ve found the answers to your questions
Who is Jawed Karim?
Jawed Karim is a software engineer and one of the brilliant minds behind the creation of YouTube! His father hails from Bangladesh who works as a researcher at 3M – a multinational conglomerate and mother Christine – a German scientist. Jawed is the kind of a guy who, along with his friends Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, decided to shake up the internet in a big way. They were just regular folks with a cool idea: to make sharing videos online super easy and fun for everyone. And guess what? They totally nailed it!
Jawed is a very private person and can’t be seen often on social media. However, he frequently updates his website jawed.com where he uploads photos of landscapes.
Jawed is not on any social network. No Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The reports of him having an Instagram account is fake.
The Journey of YouTube
Jawed Karim met Steve Chen and Chad Hurley in 2002 while working at PayPal. These three geniuses were attending a dinner party where they wanted to share videos of the event with friends. However, they found it difficult to upload and share videos online due to the limitations of existing platforms.
This frustration led them to conceive the idea of a user-friendly video-sharing platform where anyone could easily upload, share, and view videos. With Karim’s background in computer science, Chen’s expertise in programming, and Hurley’s design skills, they set out to create what would later become YouTube.
As of 2024, YouTube has 2.7 billion active users.
The First Video on YouTube
You know, not many people realize that the first-ever video uploaded on YouTube was actually a super short clip titled “Me at the zoo.” It was uploaded by Jawed Karim, one of the co-founders of YouTube, and it’s kind of a quirky little piece of internet history. What’s really interesting is that this 18-second video was shot by Karim himself at the San Diego Zoo, and it’s basically just him standing in front of some elephants, casually chatting about their long trunks.
It might seem like a random choice for a first video, but maybe because it was not planned, it got such a big response with more than 310 million YouTube views as on 11th March 2024.
It’s a fun fact that not many people know about, but it’s definitely a cool little piece of trivia that highlights the humble beginnings of one of the biggest platforms on the internet.
The Google Acquisition
Google saw YouTube’s immense potential and acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006. A report from Statista shows YouTube’s brand value has reached $29.71 billion in 2023, that is a 1698.18% increase in value.
Karim’s role as a co-founder in YouTube’s early days undoubtedly meant he had a significant share in the company, which likely made him quite wealthy after Google’s acquisition. However, the exact figure of his payout remains a matter of speculation since it wasn’t publicly disclosed.
Calculating Jawed Karim’s Net Worth
Jawed Karim received 137,443 equity shares of Google worth $64 million at that time. Since 2006, Google has undergone two 2-for-1 stock splits, one in 2014 and the other in 2015.
For example, if you own 100 shares of a company’s stock and a 2-for-1 stock split occurs, you will end up owning 200 shares after the split.
That means, Jawed’s 137,443 shares multiplied by 4 times after 2015, which is 549,772.
Unless he traded or cashed out any of those shares.
Taking into account the current value of Google’s stock which now comes under Alphabet Inc 139.46 USD (recorded on 11th March 2024) per share, 549,772 shares would be $766 million (7,66,71,203 to be exact)
I have read numerous articles including Wikipedia and done my research. For some reason, everybody is mentioning $310 million to be the net worth of Jawed Karim, which I think is not accurate.
Also read: Net Worth of Grant Cardone: Revealing the Secrets
His post-YouTube journey might not have made it to the headlines, but behind the scenes, he has been involved in other ventures.
Karim has also invested in Airbnb as one of the first investors and along with his partners, Keith Rabois, and Kevin Hartz founded a venture fund called Youniversity.
Karim’s Conflict with YouTube
In 2013, YouTube brought a change in the way users could post comments on videos. A user could post comments on YouTube videos only if he/she has a Google+ account.
This was a desperate move by Google to save the sinking ship of Google Plus social network.
But Jawed Karim did not take this lightly and changed the description of the only video he uploaded “Me at the zoo” and wrote:
“why the fuck do i need a Google+ account to comment on a video?”
“I can’t comment here anymore, since i don’t want a Google+ account”
Google felt the heat from the YouTube community and soon rolled back this change and in 2019, Google shut down Google+ citing it failed to achieve its objectives and had a major security flaw as well.
You can also check our other related article – Jake Paul Net Worth.
Conclusion
Jawed Karim has kept a low profile over a decade and it’s fair to say, he doesn’t like the limelight. He does not want magazines to publish about his personal life or the gen-z to take selfies with him.
In regards to Jawed’s net worth, it’s somewhere in the range of $310 million to $766 million.
We hope Jawed starts a new venture where he takes the world by storm.
