The Man Who YouTubed the World
By Kelli Luu | 12 Feb, 2026

Steve Chen made video-sharing a global industry and an obsession.

Without YouTube, the internet would be much quieter and less creative. There would be no influencers, music videos, or instant tutorials and Taiwanese American Steve Chen is the one who played a crucial role in unlocking the future of video sharing. 

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Steve Chen immigrated to the United States with his family in 1986 when he was seven years old. The Chen family settled in Arlington Heights, Illinois where Steve attended high school at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. He later pursued his degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before dropping out during his senior year to work for PayPal in Silicon Valley. 

While working at Paypal, Steve met his YouTube co-founders, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim and together they saw an opportunity that would make sharing videos online easier than ever. During the early 2000s, there were internet blogs and photo sharing sites, but sharing videos was much more complicated, so in 2005 the trio launched YouTube as a platform that allowed anyone to upload and watch videos immediately. 

On April 23, 2005 the very first video was uploaded to Youtube. It was titled “Me at the zoo”, an 18 second video uploaded by Jawed Karim, and from there the site exploded. Steve Chen was leading the way as Chief Technology Officer. Under his guidance, the YouTube team was able to work on and solve crucial engineering challenges like how to stream and scale massive amounts of video at one time and within one year, millions of people were visiting the platform every day. 

In October 2006, YouTube was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, with Steve also receiving 625,366 shares of Google as well as an additional 68,721 in a trust. This was one of the most significant tech acquisitions of the 2000s era as this deal helped transform YouTube into the trusted platform we know today. 

Steve Chen’s impact went far from unnoticed as he has been named in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People and Business 2.0’s 50 People Who Matter Now. Not only did Steve Chen help create the infrastructure of modern video sharing culture, he helped build a world where anyone with an idea can be seen and heard.