Jawed Karim (born October 28, 1979) is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He is one of the co-founders of

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and the first person to upload a video to the site. The site's inaugural video, "

Me at the zoo "Me at the zoo" is a YouTube video uploaded on April 23, 2005, recognized as the first video uploaded to the platform. The 19-second video features Jawed Karim, one of the co-founders of YouTube, being recorded by his high school friend, Yakov ...

", uploaded on April 24, 2005, has been viewed over 360 million times as of May 2025. 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 E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

, where he met fellow YouTube co-founders

Steve Chen Steve Chen (; born August 25, 1978) is a Taiwanese-American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur who is one of the co-founders and previous chief technology officer of the video-sharing website YouTube. After he co-founded the company A ...

and

Chad Hurley Chad Meredith Hurley (born January 24, 1977) is an American webmaster and businessman who serves as the advisor and former chief executive officer (CEO) of YouTube. He also co-founded MixBit, a since closed video sharing service. In October 2006 ...

, he designed many of its core components, including its real-time anti-fraud system.

Early life and education

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 diocese ...

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, to a

Bangladeshi Bangladeshis ( ) are the citizens and nationals of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centred on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the Bay of Bengal, eponymous bay. Bangladeshi nationality law, Bangladeshi citizenship was fo ...

father and a German mother. His father Naimul Karim () is a Bangladeshi who is a researcher at 3M, and his mother, Christine, is a German biochemistry scientist at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

. He was the elder of two boys. He crossed the

inner German border The inner German border ( or ''deutsch–deutsche Grenze''; initially also , zonal boundary) was the frontier between the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the West Germany, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West ...

with his family in the early 1980s due to experiencing

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

, growing up in

Neuss Neuss (; written ''Neuß'' until 1968; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is on the west bank of the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf. Neuss is the largest city within the Rhein-Kreis Neuss district. It is primarily known for its ...

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. Facing racism there as well, Karim moved with his family to

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (often abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, ...

, United States, in 1992. He graduated from Saint Paul Central High School in 1997, and attended the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

. He left campus prior to graduating to become an early employee at

. He continued his coursework, earning his bachelor's degree in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. He subsequently earned a master's degree in computer science from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. In addition to his native language German, he speaks English 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 soft ...

, 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 image ...

, including the data for the Visible Human Project. While working at PayPal in 2002, he met

and

. Three years later, in 2005, they founded the video-sharing website YouTube.Video websites pop up, invite postings
, ''USA Today'', November 21, 2005 Karim created the first account on YouTube, "jawed", on April 23, 2005 PDT (April 24, 2005 UTC), and uploaded the website's first video, "

", the same day. After co-founding the company and developing the YouTube concept and website with

and

, Karim enrolled as a graduate student in computer science at Stanford University while acting as an adviser to YouTube. When the site was founded 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

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 (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

annual ACM Conference entitled ''YouTube From Concept to Hyper growth''. Karim returned again to the

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 and Kevin Hartz. Karim is one of

Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( , an abbreviation of its original name, "Air Bed and Breakfast") is an American company operating an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays, experiences and services in various countries and regions. It acts as a ...

's first investors, investing in the company's initial

seed round Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggest ...

in April 2009. YVentures has also invested in Palantir,

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

and Eventbrite.

Responses to YouTube

Occasionally, Karim has updated the video description of "

" to criticize decisions made by YouTube. On November 6, 2013, YouTube began requiring that commenting on its videos be done via a

Google+ Google+ (sometimes written as Google Plus, stylized as G+ or g+) was a Social networking service, social network owned and operated by Google until it ceased operations in 2019. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challe ...

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 and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

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 that exposed 500,000 users data. Google+ was closed for personal accounts on April 2, 2019. In November 2021, Jawed updated the "Me at the zoo" video description 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. In February 2025, Jawed updated the "Me at the zoo" video's description to refer to the danger of microplastics to the brain.

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 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American scientists 21st-century Bengalis 21st-century German businesspeople 21st-century German scientists American computer businesspeople American computer programmers American computer scientists American people of Bangladeshi descent American people of German descent American technology chief executives American technology company founders 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 Grainger College of Engineering alumni Internet pioneers Living people PayPal people People from Merseburg Mass media people from Saint Paul, Minnesota Naturalized citizens of the United States Saint Paul Central High School alumni Stanford University alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni West German emigrants YouTube YouTube channels launched in 2005 YouTubers from Minnesota