YouTube
 .svg) Logo used since October 22, 2024 | |
 YouTube search results, May 2025 | |
| Type of business | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
Type of site | Online video platform, social media platform |
| Founded | February 14, 2005 |
| Headquarters | 901 Cherry Avenue San Bruno, California, United States |
| Area served | Worldwide (except blocked countries) |
| Owner | Alphabet Inc. |
| Founders | |
| Key people |
|
| Industry | |
| Products | |
| Revenue |  US$31.5 billion (2023)[1] |
| Parent | Google LLC (2006–present) |
| URL | youtube |
| IPv6 support | Yes |
| Advertising | Google AdSense |
| Registration | Optional
|
| Users |  2.7 billion MAU (January 2024)[2] |
| Launched | April 23, 2005 |
| Current status | Active |
Content license | Uploader holds copyright (standard license); Creative Commons can be selected. |
| Written in | Python (core/API),[3] C (through CPython), C++, Java (through Guice platform),[4][5] Go,[6] JavaScript (UI) |
YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen who were all former employees at PayPal.[7] Headquartered in San Bruno, California, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google itself. In January 2024, YouTube had reached more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of video every day.[8] As of May 2019[update], videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of video per minute,[9][10] and as of mid-2024[update], there were approximately 14.8 billion videos in total.[11]
On November 13, 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for 1.65 billion USD (equivalent to $2.44 billion in 2025).[12] Google expanded YouTube's business model from generating revenue through advertisements alone to paid offerings such as movies and exclusive programming explicitly produced for YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription option for watching videos without ads. YouTube incorporated the Google AdSense program, generating more revenue for both YouTube and approved users. In 2023, YouTube's advertising revenue totaled $31.7 billion, a 2% increase from the $31.1 billion reported in 2022.[13] From Q4 2023 to Q3 2024, YouTube's combined revenue from advertising and subscriptions exceeded $50 billion.[14]
Since its purchase by Google, YouTube has expanded beyond the core website, creating mobile apps, network television, games, and the ability to link with other platforms. Video categories on YouTube include music videos, video clips, news, short and feature films, songs, documentaries, movie trailers, teasers, TV spots, live streams, vlogs, and more. Most submissions are generated by individuals, including collaborations between YouTubers and corporate sponsors. Established media, news, and entertainment corporations have also created and expanded their visibility on YouTube channels to reach bigger audiences.
YouTube has had unprecedented social impact, influencing popular culture, internet trends, and creating multimillionaire celebrities. Despite its growth and success, the platform has been criticized for its facilitation of the spread of misinformation and copyrighted material, routinely violating its users' privacy, excessive censorship, endangering the safety of children and their well-being, and for its inconsistent implementation of platform guidelines.
History
Founding and initial growth (2005–2006)
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YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen. The three were early employees at PayPal and had become wealthy after eBay's acquisition of the company.[15] Hurley had studied design at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.[16]
According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, but Chen remarked that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible".[17]
Karim said the inspiration for YouTube came from the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy when Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed by Justin Timberlake during the halftime show. Karim could not easily find video clips of the incident and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami online, which led to the idea of a video-sharing site.[18][19] Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not.[17][20] They created posts on Craigslist asking attractive women to upload videos of themselves to YouTube in exchange for a $100 reward.[21] Difficulty in finding enough dating videos led to a change of plans, with the site's founders deciding to allow all types of videos.[22]
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YouTube began as a venture capital–funded technology startup. Between November 2005 and April 2006, the company raised money from various investors, with Sequoia Capital and Artis Capital Management being the largest two.[15][23] YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and a Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.[24] In February 2005, the company registered www.youtube.com.[25] The first video was uploaded on April 23, 2005. Titled "Me at the zoo", it shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo and can still be viewed on the site.[26][27] The same day, the company launched a public beta and by November, a Nike ad featuring Ronaldinho became the first video to reach one million total views.[28][29] The site exited beta in December 2005, by which time the site was receiving 8 million views a day.[30][31] Clips at the time were limited to 100 megabytes, as little as 30 seconds of footage.[32]
YouTube was not the first video-sharing site on the Internet; Vimeo was founded in November 2004, though that site remained a side project of its developers from CollegeHumor.[33] On December 17, 2005, the same week YouTube exited beta, NBCUniversal