Who founded YouTube?

Answer 1

YouTube was invented in 1997 at Grand Illusion Studios, a Carnegie Mellon University spin-off company located in Pittsburgh, PA. The product idea was the personal invention of Herbert Elwood Gilliland III, who later contacted Chad Hurley in 2005 to discuss the idea in the hopes that Chad would help him find an investor, and perhaps start the company. Instead, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawid Karim started the company and refused to help Gilliland, its inventor. In 2009, several years after the company was sold to Google for $2.1B, Herb was able to finally find a lawyer and sue Chad Hurley and Steve Chen for his 1%, or approximately $24M, though the suit was for $48M.

However, in May of 2010 Herb was forced to drop the suit, and the case ended without a negative or positive determination or settlement. Chad Hurley signed a sworn declaration claiming he had no connection to the PayPal company whatsoever in the years directly prior to forming YouTube, though prior to that he had publicly claimed he left in 2003 and Steve Chen had left in 2005. Since then, Chad has publicly regurgitated significant portions of Gilliland's blog, including comments left on the 2008 TechCrunch article "The Fourth YouTuber" by Gilliland, claiming those thoughts and ideas to be his own. Hurley has stated publicly "someone came up with the idea" when asked direct questions about the origins of the logo and name. He has never directly denied Gilliland's involvement.

During the case, Gilliland was awarded a court order to depose Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. However, beyond the restrictions placed by the law, the judge changed his mind two days before the scheduled date of deposition, and neither party was required to meet for the May 6th 2010 depositions that had previously been required of them by Magistrate Mitchell. Gilliland scored highly on a polygraph examination, a score that indicated he wasn't lying when he said that he shared the idea with Chad Hurley for 1% of the proceeds.