"In part two of How YouTube Ate TV, Fast Company 's oral history of YouTube, we look at how the company's rapid ascent after its 2005 founding led to multiple challenges, from bandwidth costs to unhappy copyright holders. This prompted the startup to consider selling itself, and on October 9, 2006, Google announced that it would be buying it, for $1.65 billion. That deal came with the promise that the web giant would help YouTube scale up even further without micromanaging it. Eventually, the balance they struck between integration and independence paid off. But when YouTube was still a tiny, plucky startup, nobody was looking that far ahead."
"Steve Chen, cofounder-with Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim-of YouTube: I would take care of the product team, the engineering team, the technology side of it, building out this product. And [Hurley] would be managing finance, business development, and content partnerships, the legal side. But we always shared an office, or even shared a desk when we were small."
"Zahavah Levine, YouTube general counsel, chief counsel (2006-2011): On my first day, Steve handed me a sealed box from Ikea, and invited me to erect my desk. "Oh yeah," he added, "you might also want to order a computer online." Of the 23 employees, most were under the age of 25. At 37, I often felt like the adult in the room, and at times I felt like the corporate grandmother."
YouTube experienced explosive growth after its 2005 founding, triggering bandwidth costs, copyright disputes, and scaling problems. The company pursued a sale and Google acquired it for $1.65 billion on October 9, 2006, promising infrastructure support without heavy-handed management. Over time, a balance between integration and independence enabled further expansion. The early team was tiny and informal, sharing desks and makeshift offices. Founders divided responsibilities between product/engineering and finance/business/legal, while hiring skewed very young, with older counsel providing an adult presence during rapid, chaotic growth.
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