Steve Chen

Steve Chen is best known as the co-founder and former chief technology officer of the video-sharing website YouTube. Google bought YouTube for $1.64 billion in stock.

Updated: May 19, 2021

(1978-)

Who Is Steve Chen?

Born in August 1978 in Taipei, Taiwan, Steve Chen is an American entrepreneur who co-launched the video-sharing website YouTube in 2005. YouTube ranked as the 10th most popular website a year after its launch. Chen, YouTube’s chief technology officer, was named to 2006’s “The 50 People Who Matter Now” list by Business 2.0 magazine. That same year, Google bought YouTube for $1.64 billion in stock.

Profile

Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of YouTube. Born in August 1978 in Taiwan. Raised in Taiwan, Chen and his family immigrated to the United States when he was 15.

After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Chen worked at PayPal, where he met Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. In 2005, the three founded YouTube, a website designed to simplify video sharing online.

YouTube quickly became one of the web's fastest-growing sites, and was ranked as the 10th most popular website just a year after its launch. There are reportedly 100 million clips viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours.

Chen served as the Chief Technology Officer and was named one of the "The 50 people who matter now" by Business 2.0 magazine in 2006. That year, he and Hurley sold YouTube to Google, Inc. for $1.65 billion in stock.

QUICK FACTS

Name: Chen
Birth Year: 1978
Birth City: Taipei
Birth Country: Taiwan
Gender: Male
Best Known For: Steve Chen is best known as the co-founder and former chief technology officer of the video-sharing website YouTube. Google bought YouTube for $1.64 billion in stock.
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