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If we didn’t have Google Search, YouTube would not be doing as well
as it’s doing to be able to find that piece of content that you’re finding,”
he said.
According to Steve, it would have been impossible for him to accom-
plish as much as Google did with YouTube, so it made more sense to sell
the startup to a larger, more capable company. “All these things, we just
couldn’t do with the sixty-eight-person team that we had,” he concluded.
Most of the team were relieved when the company was sold.
Steve believes the next step in YouTube’s path will be moving more
and more to mobile devices. As smartphones become more common
and data plans more affordable, it is becoming much easier to watch
YouTube videos on the go. “YouTube itself has always been a perfect
dance partner with mobile and for a few reasons. One of them is the
type of content that you watch on YouTube,” he explained. Most You-
Tube videos are very short and don’t require much time investment at
all, making it the perfect way to stay entertained while using a mobile
device.
Make Connections
Steve Chen became a Google employee after Google acquired
YouTube, which is how he met his future wife. Park Ji-hyun, now
known as Jamie Chen, was working at Google as a Korea product
marketing manager when she met Steve. They married in 2009
and moved to Tunbridge Wells in the United Kingdom a year later.
They have two children now, one son and one daughter.