Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the first video on YouTube, the world’s biggest social media platform. Originally intended to be a dating tool with videos (obviously?), YouTube quickly revolutionized how we watch, create, and share videos, turning ordinary users into content creators. The NYT has a great article chronicling its biggest moments from Lazy Sunday to Gangnam Style to I am Not a Cat., etc.
Google saw the potential of YouTube early on and snapped it up in 2006 for $1.65 billion, the company's biggest acquisition at the time. Today, YouTube has 2.53 billion active monthly users (behind only Facebook), and more than 60% of all U.S. internet user access the site daily. In 2024, the site generated $54+ billion in revenue and is on track to overtake Disney as the world's biggest media company by revenue in 2025. In fact, analysts estimate that YouTube could be worth as much as $550 billion as a stand-alone company (that would make it the 17th biggest company in world as of April 2025).
And it all started with this unassuming 19 second video from co-founder Jawad Karim: "I am at the Zoo."
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