YouTube

From Ballotpedia - Reading time: 2 min


YouTube
New Youtube logo.jpg
Basic facts
Location:San Bruno, Calif.
Type:Limited Liability Company
Top official:Neal Mohan, CEO
Founder(s):Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim
Year founded:2005
Website:Official website


YouTube is a limited liability company owned by Google Inc., a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. The company is based in San Bruno, Calif.[1][2]

Background[edit]

YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.[3] According to a USA Today article, YouTube was created in response to the difficulty of locating online videos of the 2004 Asian tsunami and/or of Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction."[4] Karim uploaded the first YouTube video, called "Me at the Zoo," in April 2005.[5] Google purchased YouTube for $1.7 billion a year after its founding, and by its tenth year in 2015, YouTube was the third most popular web domain globally and received visits from about one billion people daily.[4][6][7] As of August 2025, YouTube was the second most viewed website in the world with nearly 52 billion monthly visits.[8]

On its website, YouTube says its mission is to "give everyone a voice and show them the world. We believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories."[1]

Older YouTube logo

Leadership[edit]

Neal Mohan became the CEO of YouTube in 2023.[9]

Work and activities[edit]

Presidential debates (2015-2016)[edit]

See also: Presidential debates (2015-2016)

On December 16, 2015, NBC News announced that it would co-host the fourth Democratic debate along with YouTube and the Congressional Black Caucus. NBC Nightly News Anchor Lester Holt moderated the debate, which took place from 9 to 11 p.m.[10] YouTube offered online viewing of the debate at YouTube.com and NBCNews.com, with coverage beginning at 8 p.m.[11]

Finances[edit]

Google Inc., a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, owns YouTube. The company's stock is traded publicly as GOOG on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. GOOG's closing stock price on August 5, 2025, was $195.75.[1][12]

Recent news[edit]

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms YouTube Company. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Footnotes[edit]


Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 | Original source: https://ballotpedia.org/YouTube
Status: cached on November 26 2025 10:44:19
Encyclosphere.org EncycloReader is supported by the EncyclosphereKSF