Every day, people from all over the world and of all ages watch nearly 5 billion videos on the website YouTube, but when the streaming service started in 2005, the only people it was meant to attract were single adults looking for a date. Those romantic notions were short-lived. Five days into things, the number of people uploading videos introducing themselves to potential partners was zero. Co-founder Steve Chen said it quickly became apparent that YouTube needed to be more than a matchmaker, so he and fellow co-founders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim decided to open things up to any uploads. Things took off quickly from there, and in November 2006, the group sold its video-sharing service to Google for $1.65 billion. In a sense, love is still its thing: People love YouTube so much that they watch 1 billion hours of video every day and upload 500 hours of it every minute.
Looking into YouTube:
The first video on YouTube was of co-founder Jawed Karim visiting the San Diego Zoo in April 2005.
Cat videos are hugely popular on YouTube, which includes one of cats “boxing” at Thomas Edison’s studio in 1894.
YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, includes a huge slide that employees can ride instead of taking the stairs or elevator.