Steve Chen Net Worth, Education, Wife Park Ji-Hyun, Biography

• Steven Shih Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan and is an entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of YouTube.
• He has a net worth of ~$350 million and his biggest success is YouTube, which was bought by Google for $1.65 billion.
• He grew up in Taiwan and the US, attending the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• His career path included PayPal, Facebook and YouTube, and he has since been involved in other ventures, including MixBit and Nom.com.
• He is married with two children, a supporter of the Asian Art Museum, and a fan of the NBA's Sacramento Kings.

Who is Steve Chen?

Steven Shih Chen was born on 25 August 1978, in Taipei, Taiwan, and is an entrepreneur, known for being one of the co-founders of the video-sharing website YouTube, for which he previously served as the chief technology officer. He also built the video sharing app MixBit, and has been a part of Google Ventures since 2014.

The Wealth of Steve Chen

Nnet worth ~$350 million. His biggest success is YouTube, which was bought by Google from the founders for $1.65 billion.

Early Life and Education

Steve grew up in Taipei, and when he was eight years old the family moved to the US, and settled in Prospect Heights, Illinois where he attended River Trails Middle School. Following that, he then attended John Hersey High School for his first year before moving to the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. The school is known for being a three-year residential institution, and enrollment is often offered to incoming sophomores. Admission is very competitive, consisting of evaluations, essays, good SAT scores, and grades.

After matriculating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he took up a degree in computer science. The university is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system. Their library system is the second largest in the US after Harvard University and they also host the fastest supercomputer on a university campus. There are 16 colleges within and they also have a Research Park which is home to over 90 start-ups as well as multi-national corporations.

The Path to YouTube

Chen began working as a part of PayPal, where he would meet future YouTube co-founders, Jawed Karim and Chad Hurley. PayPal is a company that handles worldwide online payments, serving as an electronic alternative to paper methods. In 2018, it was ranked as 222^nd on the Fortune 500 list of largest US corporations by revenue. He eventually left PayPal, and became one of the early employees of the company Facebook.

It was during this time that he was approached to start YouTube, and he decided to leave Facebook to focus on this new project. He became the chief technology officer of the video-sharing service, which allows users to upload their own video content for others to view. The popularity of the site grew significantly in its first few years, with it becoming an online video library consisting of original videos, video clips, trailers, video blogs, and many more. As their project gained international reach, corporations soon took notice, with Google eventually offering them a large sum to buy their website.

Recent Endeavors

Thanks to his success with YouTube, Steve has been named as one of “The 50 people who matter now” by the magazine “Business 2.0”. Even though they sold YouTube, he retained over 625,000 in shares of the company, while around 70,000 were put in a trust as a part of the sale. His shares are currently valued at over $700 million. He then focused on other projects, including a new company called AVOS Systems, which he created alongside Chad Hurley. The company would later create the video sharing service MixBit, which initially competed with Vine and Instagram, however, they ceased operations sometime during 2018.

He was also listed as one of the ‘15 Asian Scientists to Watch’ by Asian Scientist Magazine, and then started the live streaming food network called Nom.com. The site only lasted for a year, with all of its social media accounts left active. He was also inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois, and was awarded the Order of Lincoln which is Illinois’ highest honor – only a very few people are presented with the award each year. Some of the individuals given the award include Studs Terkel, William A. Patterson, Jim Lovell, and Roger Ebert.

YouTube and Facebook come together around the @sacramentokings…. pic.twitter.com/t1L7mQyGnA

— steve chen (@stevechen) February 10, 2019

Personal Life and Social Media

Chen married Park Ji-hyun in 2009, who became Jamie Chen; she is a Google Korea product marketing manager. The family now live in San Francisco alongside two children. The couple are major supporters of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, which houses one of the most comprehensive Asian art collections around the world. There are over 18,000 works of art displayed, with some dating back 6,000 years. His wife is one of the trustees of the museum.

Twitter on which he has over 4,000 followers, using the platform to advocate some of his recent projects and endeavors though does not post there frequently. One of his last posts was about the digital distribution platform called Origin, developed by Electronic Arts for video gaming. The account also shows that he’s been traveling around the world, giving keynote speeches and becoming a consultant for several other businesses. He is a big fan of the National Basketball Association (NBA) team, the Sacramento Kings, often going to watch games at courtside.