Who Owns YouTube? (Complete Story)

YouTube is undoubtedly the most popular video streaming platform in the entire world.

As of 2023, it currently has 2.3 billion active users on the platform, and 52% of all internet users open YouTube at least once a month.

That’s how huge YouTube is.

We all can agree about how crucial YouTube is in our day-to-day lives. Whether we want to learn how to bake a cake or learn a new programming language, YouTube has completely changed the way humans used to consume information.

And what’s even more crazier is you can consume all of this information completely free of cost.

To be honest, humanity should be genuinely grateful to YouTube for giving us a new way of learning.

But have you ever thought about who is behind this super genius invention of all time? And who owns YouTube?

If you’re a hardcore YouTube user, you probably had this question inside your mind for ages.

But today, we’re going to bust it.

In this post, we’ll discuss and find out who owns YouTube and how this platform actually got started.

So, without wasting any further time, let’s dive right in.

Who Owns YouTube?

So, first things first, let’s unveil the mystery.

YouTube is an American social media and video-sharing platform currently owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.

Apart from YouTube, Alphabet Inc. owns many large brands, such as Google Search, Android, Double Click (currently known as Google Ads), Gmail, and Fitbit.

In 2006, Google acquired YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion from its founders within two years of its inception.

Before YouTube, there wasn’t any big video-sharing platform out there in the market, but when YouTube launched, it created a massive buzz among the users, which skyrocketed the platform’s growth overnight.

Between 2005 (when YouTube was launched) and 2006 (when Google acquired it), it received an average of 100 million views daily, and 65,000 brand-new videos were getting published on the platform daily.

When Google acquired YouTube, many experts were saying that Google overpaid for it and it was a wrong move.

But fast forward to today, YouTube is generating $29.3 billion yearly revenue for Google, which is nearly 11 times what they had paid to acquire YouTube.

This is probably one of the most profitable acquisitions of all time in the tech industry.

History of YouTube (How It Started)

YouTube is not founded by Google.

They acquired it.

So, the million-dollar question is: who actually founded it?

YouTube was founded by three former employees of PayPal: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim.

On February 14, 2005, they launched the YouTube website with the aim of making video sharing easily accessible for everyone.

In an interview, the founders of YouTube, Hurley and Chen, said YouTube was originally started as a video-based online dating service inspired by Hot or Not. They created multiple posts on Craigslist asking attractive women to post their videos on YouTube in exchange for a $100 reward. 

However, after this idea horribly failed, they decided to allow all kinds of video uploads on the platform, which planted the seed for YouTube.

The first video was uploaded on YouTube on April 23, 2005, and was titled “Me at the Zoo” by one of their c0-founders, Jawed Karim. Currently, that video has 298 million views and 15 million likes.

In May of that same year, they launched the beta version of the platform, and by December 15, 2005, the YouTube platform became officially available to the public.

By the time the site became public, it was already receiving around 8 million views daily.

Even though some people argue that YouTube was the first video-sharing platform on the internet, the truth is Vimeo was already launched for the public in November 2004. However, for a very long time, Vimeo was just a hobby project for its founders.

Who is The Current CEO of YouTube?

Neel Mohan is the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of YouTube.

Neel joined Google almost 15 years ago as part of his former company Double Click’s acquisition.

After working as senior vice president of Google’s display and video ads division, Neel was promoted to chief product officer of YouTube in 2015.

Since then, Susan (Ex-CEO YouTube) and Neel have been working pretty closely to improve the user experience of YouTube and make it unbeatable.

Apart from his role as SVP and CPO, he also led the launch of YouTube Premium, YouTube Music, YouTube TV, and shorts.

In February 2023, Susan Wojcicki stepped down as the CEO of YouTube after 9 long years of service. Neel was promoted to the CEO position of YouTube that same day.

Neel has always been one of the crucial parts of YouTube’s core team that helped YouTube reach new heights.

YouTube Revenue And Net Worth

In the beginning, the founders of YouTube had only one monetization channel in mind – ads.

But after YouTube’s acquisition, Google introduced many new features, such as YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, that led to a huge revenue spike for the company.

YouTube’s income has been increasing rapidly each year, and experts predict that in the coming years, it might surpass all other ways Google makes money.

YouTube started generating revenue for Google from the year 2010. In the first year, YouTube generated a revenue of $800M+, and it has been constantly multiplying since then. 

As per recent reports, in 2022, YouTube generated a revenue of $29.2 billion from all of its services, including YouTube ads. This revenue accounted for approximately 11.35% of Google’s total revenue for the year.

When it comes to the Net worth of YouTube, there is not really any public figure available as YouTube is owned by Google and does not have individual shareholders.

However, the brand value of YouTube is currently around $29.71 billion.

FAQs Related to The Ownership of YouTube

Does Mark Zuckerberg own YouTube?

No, Mark Zuckerberg does not own YouTube. Google owns it.

Which is richer, Google or YouTube?

Google owns YouTube, so YouTube can’t be bigger or richer than Google itself. 

Is YouTube bigger than Netflix?

In terms of user base and revenue, YouTube is far bigger than Netflix or any other video streaming platform.

Are there other stakeholders in YouTube?

Google owns 100% of the stake in YouTube. And as Google is a listed company, there are plenty of Google stakeholders. If you own Google stock, you indirectly own YouTube stock, too.

Does YouTube have its own stock listed on the market?

No, YouTube does not have its own stock listed on the market. YouTube is a private company owned by Alphabet Inc (Google).

Is YouTube regulated by any government entity?

No, as it’s a privately held company, YouTube is not regulated by any government entity. However, YouTube does have to follow certain government guidelines in every part of the world.

Conclusion

We hope you have a clear understanding of who owns YouTube now.

Google acquired YouTube back in 2006, and since then, it has always been a crucial part of Google’s overall business and revenue.

Even though Google paid a mind-blowing amount of $1.65 billion to acquire the video-sharing platform YouTube, Google has already made 100 times the return on its investment while still owning the company.