Top > Business > 2007 > February > 2007-02-14

YouTube Founders, Sequoia Capital Split Millions in Stock

YouTube founders will share approximately $650 million in stock, the Internet search giant Google accounted to federal authorities in a report in which the specified the payments it made in its purchase of YouTube last October for $1.65 billion.

The report stated that YouTube CEO, Hurley received 735,319 Google shares, worth over $339 million at the current $461.89 share price. Co-founder Steve Chen received 694,087 shares worth over $320 million, and a third co-founder, Jawed Karim, received 137,443 shares worth about $63 million, despite his leaving the company in early 2005 to continue his studies at Stanford University. Sequoia Capital, YouTube`s sole backer and early Google investor, received shares worth over $442 million. The rest of the two-dozen YouTube employees received a smaller amount of shares. Most of the remaining shares were divided up among dozens of limited partner investors in Sequoia Capital.

YouTube is a popular free video sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips, both the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published. Founded in February 2005 by three former employees of PayPal, the San Bruno-based service utilizes Adobe Flash technology to display video. The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. The company was named TIME magazine`s "Invention of the Year" for 2006. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google`s stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.