JAWED KARIM: BIOGRAPHY, ACADEMIC AND WORK EXPERIENCE, YOUTUBE - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Jawed Karim (1979) is a German-American businessman. He is recognized for being one of the co-founders of YouTube and the first person to upload a video to the platform. At present, he stands out for leading the Youniversity Ventures company, which aims to support students to develop their business projects.

Despite having been the first face to be seen in the technological system, the career of this engineer has been characterized by being discreet, as there is little news about his life and business. According to the Esquire portal, this reserved attitude was caused by the statements of Steve Chen and Chad Hurley.

Jawed Karim in 2008. Source: Rotatebot.

These agents apparently stated that Karim had hardly contributed to the development of the page and that he only wanted to obtain credits. This testimony was denied in mid-2006 by the German computer scientist.

However, these claims have not been legally substantiated. The truth is that the platform continues to show that Jawed was one of its founders, he is also an example of perseverance and improvement.

Biography

Family and early years

Jawed Karim was born on October 28, 1979 in Merseburg, a city located in Germany. He is the son of Naimul and Christine Karim. His father is a well-known researcher, while his mother excels in the area of ​​science and education.

Jawed's childhood was determined by the changes, since his family decided to emigrate in the eighties to the west of the German country. The objective was to distance herself from the chaos that the Cold War (1947-1991) was generating, as well as to avoid the ambiguous policies established by the communists during the Democratic Republic of Germany.

That is why they settled in Neuss, but in 1992 they chose to cross the border and move to North America.

Academic and work experience

Once located in Minnesota, Karim studied at Saint Paul High School. Shortly after receiving the initial academic preparation diploma, he entered the University of Illinois, located in Urbana-Champaign, where he began studying computer engineering.

However, he put off higher education because he had to move to California. The reason was that he started working in the virtual PayPal industry, a bank where he was a program designer and got the security system to work, which is why fraud decreased.

Joining that association was fundamental, since in 1999 he met Chad Hurley and Steve Chen; companions with whom he tried to forge a platform that would revolutionize the history of humanity.

YouTube Creation

At the beginning of the 21st century, Karim, Chen and Hurley raised the difficulty of finding thematic videos on the internet. For that reason they decided to design a page that would speed up the publishing process. The project initially consisted of creating a dating site, where people could see potential partners and rate them from 1 to 10.

This space would be called HotOrNot; But the project had certain limitations, such as the restriction of content and the scarce economic resources that they had. However, they did not abandon the idea. On the contrary, they set out to expand it.

That is why they planned to open the system online so that users could sell their products or hold auctions through the virtual environment. The aim was for individuals to be able to work from their homes.

Months later they realized that it was more feasible to approve that netizens share the recordings for pleasure and without the need for them to have a specific topic, that is how the first version of YouTube emerged.

Source: pixabay.com

First video

The purpose of the founders of YouTube was for people to find entertainment material on the Internet. For this reason, they registered the site on February 15, 2005. In April of the same year, Karim published the first video entitled Me at the zoo.

19-second recording showing Jawed talking about elephants. The resolution is certainly not sharp; But what was relevant was the impact that the tape had on individuals, since it showed that the entire public could upload content to the network and not only the owners of the pages. That event caused the number of subscribers to increase from one moment to the next.

As a result, the Sequoia Capital company invested $ 8.5 million in the new platform, a business that Karim advised. It is worth noting that it also contributed to the development of programs that detected when other portals used YouTube videos without authorization.

YouTube sale

Before YouTube was sold to Google for $ 1.65 billion, Karim had resigned as one of the company's majority partners. That is why he worked as a technical advisor and not as a full-time employee. This was because he had the goal of continuing his studies.

After completing his undergraduate degree, he enrolled at Stanford University and completed a master's degree in computer science. It should be noted that Jawed –although he gave up playing the role of main shareholder- participated in the transfer of the platform as one of its creators.

The exact amount he obtained after the sale is still unknown; but journalists speculate that he received roughly $ 64 million. This sum allowed him to found in 2008, together with Keith Rabois and Kevin Hartz, the company Youniversity Ventures, a firm that is dedicated to financing entrepreneurship plans for university students.

In addition, he assumed the role of advisor in the Milo sales industry and oversaw the development of the event site for the Eventbrite group.

Present

In 2009, Karim was one of the first investors in Airbnb, a company that created an application where tourist offers are displayed. He is also a partner in the finance company Sequoia Capital.

He currently works as an advisor at TokBox, a platform run by OpenTok, an industry characterized by designing programs that facilitate the editing of virtual material; Although more than a decade has passed, his video is still being watched.

References

1. Ballesteros, A. (2019). Jawed Karim: the forgotten founder of YouTube. Retrieved on December 4, 2019 from Emprendedores Magazine: emprendedores.es
2. Carson, J. (2016). Who are the founders of YouTube? Retrieved on December 4, 2019 from the Department of Science and Technology: dts.gov.in
3. Galán, R. (2019). The true story of the first YouTube video. Retrieved on December 4, 2019 from Esquire Magazine: esquire.com
4. Jindachot, N. (2017). Who is Jawed Karim? Retrieved on December 4, 2019 from The New York Times: nytimes.com
5. Nieto, P. (2018). How 3 young men went from creating a dating site called YouTube to being millionaire business consultants. Retrieved on December 4, 2019 from BBC News Mundo: bbc.com
6. Weaver, S. (2015). Legend about Jawed Karim. Retrieved on December 4, 2019 from Fortune: fortune.com