
It was 17 years ago on a Sunday day when a 25-year-old boy named Jawed Karim uploaded the first video to YouTube, launching a service that continued to become the main centre for video broadcasting and giving anyone who had a camera and a good device. the idea of the opportunity to make a living from their content.
The first video is not of what impresses you. The low-resolution clip, 19 seconds (below), called "Me in the Zoo," features YouTube co-founder Karim at the San Diego Zoo, noting the extraordinary length of elephant horns.
Of course, when he recorded and uploaded the clip, Karim knew YouTube would become the phenomenon it is today. Nor would his video garner hundreds of millions of views in the years that followed.
A month after Karim's video appeared on the page in April 2005, YouTube launched the test version of the service ahead of an official launch in November of that year. At the same time, Karim left YouTube to study for a master's degree in computer science at Stanford University, but took stock worth tens of millions of dollars when Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.
Karim went on to co-found a fund venture called Youniversity Ventures (now YVentures), with Airbnb and Reddit among those benefiting from investments.