Jawed Karim (বাংলাঃ জাওয়াদ করিম) (born October 28, 1979) is an American software engineer and
Internet entrepreneur
An Internet entrepreneur is an owner, founder or manager of an Internet-based business. This list includes Internet company founders and people brought on to companies for their general business or accounting acumen, as is the case with some CEOs ...
of Bangladeshi and German descent. He is a co-founder of
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
and the first person to upload a video to the site. This inaugural video, titled "
Me at the zoo
"Me at the zoo" is the first video uploaded to YouTube, on April 23, 2005, 8:31:52 p.m. PDT, or April 24, 2005, at 03:31:52 UTC. The 19-second video features YouTube's co-founder Jawed Karim, who was 25 years old at the time, in front of ...
" and uploaded on April 23, 2005, has been viewed over 246 million times, .
During Karim's time working at
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
, where he met the fellow YouTube co-founders
Steven Chen and
Chad Hurley, he had designed many of the core components including its real-time anti-Internet-fraud system.
Early life
Jawed Karim was born on October 28, 1979, in
Merseburg
Merseburg () is a town in central Germany in southern Saxony-Anhalt, situated on the river Saale, and approximately 14 km south of Halle (Saale) and 30 km west of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a dioces ...
,
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, to a Bangladeshi father and a German mother. His father Naimul Karim ( bn, নাইমুল করিম) is a Muslim Bangladeshi who works as a researcher at
3M, and his mother, Christine, is a German scientist of biochemistry at the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
. He was the elder of two boys.
He crossed the
inner German border with his family in the early 1980s because of
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
,
growing up in
Neuss
Neuss (; spelled ''Neuß'' until 1968; li, Nüss ; la, Novaesium) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the west bank of the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf. Neuss is the largest city within the Rhein-Kreis Neuss district. It ...
,
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
. Experiencing xenophobia there as well,
Karim moved with his family to
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...
, in 1992.
He graduated from
Saint Paul Central High School
Saint Paul Central High School is the oldest high school in the state of Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1866 in downtown Saint Paul, Central has educated many leaders in business, government, literature, arts, sciences, and education through ...
in 1997,
and attended the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...
.
He left campus prior to graduating to become an early employee at
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
; however, he continued his coursework,
earning his bachelor's degree in computer science. He subsequently earned a master's degree in
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
from
Stanford University. In addition to English, Jawed speaks German and Bengali.
Career
In university, Karim served an Internship at
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and sof ...
, Inc., where he worked on 3D voxel data management for very large data sets for
volume rendering
In scientific visualization and computer graphics, volume rendering is a set of techniques used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely sampled data set, typically a 3D scalar field.
A typical 3D data set is a group of 2D slice imag ...
, including the data for the
Visible Human Project
The Visible Human Project is an effort to create a detailed data set of cross-sectional photographs of the human body, in order to facilitate anatomy visualization applications. It is used as a tool for the progression of medical findings, in which ...
. While working at PayPal in 2002, he met
Chad Hurley and
Steve Chen. Three years later, in 2005, they founded the video-sharing website YouTube.
[Video websites pop up, invite postings](_blank)
''USA Today'', November 21, 2005 Karim created the first channel on YouTube, "jawed", on April 23, 2005
PDT (April 24, 2005
UTC), and uploaded the website's first video, "
Me at the zoo
"Me at the zoo" is the first video uploaded to YouTube, on April 23, 2005, 8:31:52 p.m. PDT, or April 24, 2005, at 03:31:52 UTC. The 19-second video features YouTube's co-founder Jawed Karim, who was 25 years old at the time, in front of ...
", the same day.
[
After co-founding the company and developing the YouTube concept and website with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, Karim enrolled as a graduate student in computer science at Stanford University while acting as an adviser to YouTube. When the site was introduced in February 2005, Karim agreed not to be an employee and simply be an informal adviser, and that he was focusing on his studies.] As a result, he took a much lower share in the company compared to Hurley and Chen. Because of his smaller role in the company, Karim was mostly unknown to the public as the third founder until YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
was acquired by Google in 2006. Despite his lower share in the company, the purchase was still large enough that he received 137,443 shares of stock, worth about $64 million based on Google's closing stock price at the time.
In October 2006, Karim gave a lecture about the history of YouTube at the University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
annual ACM Conference entitled ''YouTube From Concept to Hyper growth''. Karim returned again to the University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
in May 2008 as the 136th and youngest Commencement Speaker in the school's history.
Investments
In March 2008, Karim launched a venture fund called Youniversity Ventures (now known as YVentures) with partners Keith Rabois
Keith Rabois (born March 17, 1969) is an American technology executive and investor. He is currently a general partner at Founders Fund. He is widely known for his early-stage startup investments and his executive roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide, ...
and Kevin Hartz
Kevin Hartz is an American businessman in the technology industry. He is the co-founder of Xoom, of which he was the CEO from 2001 to 2005.
Biography
Hartz was born in Berkeley, California, and raised in Orinda, California. His high school was ...
. Karim is one of Airbnb
Airbnb, Inc. ( ), based in San Francisco, California, operates an online marketplace focused on short-term homestays and experiences. The company acts as a broker and charges a commission from each booking. The company was founded in 2008 b ...
's first investors, investing in the company's initial seed round
Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...
in April 2009. Y Ventures has also invested in Palantir, Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, imag ...
and Eventbrite
Eventbrite is an American event management and ticketing website. The service allows users to browse, create, and promote local events. The service charges a fee to event organizers in exchange for online ticketing services, unless the event is f ...
.
Responses to YouTube
Occasionally Karim has updated the video description of "Me at the zoo" to criticize decisions made by YouTube.
On November 6, 2013, YouTube began requiring that commenting on its videos be done via a Google+
Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus; sometimes called G+) was a social network owned and operated by Google. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google p ...
account, a move that was widely opposed by the YouTube community. An online petition to revert the change garnered over 240,000 signatures.
In response to Google requiring YouTube members to use Google+ for its comment system, Karim wrote on his YouTube account, "why the fuck do i need a Google+ account to comment on a video", and updated the video description on his first video titled "Me at the zoo" to "I can't comment here anymore, since i don't want a Google+ account".
In response to pressure from the YouTube community, Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
publicly apologized for forcing Google+ users to use their real names, which was one of the reasons the Google+ integration was unpopular with YouTube users. Google subsequently dropped its Google+ requirement across all products, beginning with YouTube. Google announced in October 2018 its intention to permanently shut down Google+, as it had failed to achieve broad consumer or developer adoption, and because of a vulnerability. Google+ was closed for personal accounts on April 2, 2019.
In November 2021, Jawed updated the description of "Me at the zoo" to include "When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is. Try again, YouTube🤦♂️". A few days later, Karim updated the description again to a more detailed condemnation of YouTube's decision.
See also
* PayPal Mafia
The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and/or developed additional technology companies such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, an ...
* History of YouTube
YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California, founded by three former PayPal employees— Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim– in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for ...
Notes
References
External links
Jawed Karim's Personal Website
Jawed Karim's YouTube Profile
Cache of Jawed Karim's YouTube Profile in 2008
Youniversity Ventures
"He went off to college to make his fortune"
– ''The News-Gazette'' (October 16, 2006)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karim, Jawed
1979 births
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American scientists
21st-century German businesspeople
21st-century German scientists
American computer businesspeople
American computer programmers
American computer scientists
American Muslims
American people of Bangladeshi descent
American people of German descent
American technology chief executives
American technology company founders
American YouTubers
Businesspeople from Saint Paul, Minnesota
East German emigrants to the United States
East German emigrants to West Germany
East German scientists
German computer programmers
German computer scientists
German emigrants to the United States
German people of Bangladeshi descent
German YouTubers
Internet pioneers
Living people
YouTube
YouTube channels launched in 2005
American male YouTubers
PayPal people
People from Merseburg
People with acquired American citizenship
Grainger College of Engineering alumni
West German emigrants
20th-century Bengalis
21st-century Bengalis