What year was YouTube founded?

YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. All three founders were early PayPal employees who combined design and engineering experience to create a simpler way to share video online.

The YouTube domain was registered on February 14, 2005. The site’s first video, “Me at the zoo,” was uploaded by Karim on April 23, 2005, showing him at the San Diego Zoo. YouTube initially experimented with the idea of an online dating service, but the founders soon broadened it into a general-purpose video-sharing platform.

The service grew rapidly after opening its public beta. A widely shared upload of Saturday Night Live’s “Lazy Sunday” helped demonstrate YouTube’s viral potential in late 2005, while a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho became its first video to reach one million views.

A frequent mix-up is between founding, launch, and acquisition dates. YouTube was founded in 2005, publicly launched during that year, and bought by Google in 2006. Its early slogan was “Broadcast Yourself,” reflecting its focus on user-uploaded video.