Google announced the purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion
XORit Editorial · Sources, AI assistance and corrections
On October 9, 2006, Google announced the purchase of the video service YouTube for $1.65 billion. Payment was made in Google stock, and the deal finally closed on November 13, 2006.
The service appeared less than two years before that. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005 by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen, all three of whom had previously worked at PayPal. The first video, "Me at the zoo," was uploaded on April 23, 2005. YouTube was not the first such project: Vimeo launched in November 2004.
By the time of the sale the service was growing fast. In December 2005 the site came out of beta, and in July 2006 the company reported that more than 65,000 new videos were uploaded to the platform per day and 100 million views per day were recorded. The startup lived on investors' money, and revenue came only from advertising.
In 2025 prices, $1.65 billion corresponds to roughly $2.44 billion. After the purchase Google expanded the service's model: advertising was joined by paid offerings, including films and programs made specifically for YouTube, and later the ad-free YouTube Premium subscription.
YouTube remains the second most visited site in the world after Google itself. In January 2024 the service had more than 2.7 billion monthly active users.
Image: Google INC Public domain
Translation editors: Соловьев В., Пеков А.
Source: en.wikipedia.org ↗