It was April 2005 when a young man Jawed KarimYouTube co -founder uploaded what would be the first video of the platform. They were images of only 19 seconds that was entitled under the name of “I at the zoo”. A homemade, casual recording that became a milestone to be the starting gun of what we currently know. 20 years have passed since that time and a curious fact is that they have climbed More than 20 billion videos Until today. The data of the month of March 2025 reveal that daily More than 20 million videos.
In that first YouTube video, Karim is shown as if it were what we know today as influencer. Shows the camera The animals that are seeing in the zoo“Well, then here we are facing the elephants. And the good thing about these types is that they have very, very, very long tubes,” he explains in those few seconds that lasts.
The doubt that many Internet users have questioned for years is what happened to Jawed Karim and what has been of him. Remember that it was A key piece in the initial development of YouTube By contributing the idea, but also the architecture that the platform was going to have that allowed videos and sharing them easily.
What has been from Jawed Karim
Karim was born in Germany although His family emigrated to the United States In 1992 fleeing racism. His father, who was Bangladesí, worked at the 3M company, while his mother, was a professor and researcher at the University of Minnesota. Although he went through college, he left before finishing for Work in PayPal where he met Steve Chan and Chad Hurleythe partners with whom you founded.
He has always maintained a low profile since the creation of YouTube, as well as the other partners. The young man had the idea of founding this platform in 2004. Karim, who was then 24 years old, was trying to search the Internet for videos of the Super Bowl and a tidal that shook the Indian Ocean. It was there when realized that it was practically impossible to find them And he thought that an application had to be created in which all videos could be gathered.
For his plan to move forward in 2005 with Chan and Hurley he resumed his university studies and graduated in computer science at Stanford University. The studies occupied much of his time so he had to leave his job on YouTube and stayed as a advisor. This implied that when a year after its creation it was sold to Google For 1,650 million dollars I received less money: I had fewer shares.
Karim became a millionaire overnight, since He received 64 million And little has been known since then. In 2008 he created a risk fund known as Younglesh Ventures. It was also one of the first investors of Airbnband has more in companies like Palantir, Reddit and Eventbrite.
He is the advisor of Toybox Inc.and he is a partner of Capital Sequoiaa financing company. He is currently 45 years old and does not usually grant interviews. There are also many photos of how he is right now because he closed his social networks. He has only left the occasional comment on his first video to criticize Google.
