If the trivia is ever on the first person to upload a video on YouTube, your winning bet is Jawed Karim. While not too many have heard of him, he is an entrepreneur and one of the founders of YouTube. He is the brain behind some of the platform’s real-time anti-internet fraud systems. Also an investor, Karim worked with PayPal before joining forces with Steven Chen and Chad Hurley to start the video-sharing platform. Here’s a concise account of his life including facts about his wife, wealth, and what have you.
Jawed Karim Biography
It was on 28 October 1979 that Jawed Karim was born in Merseburg, Germany. While his mother Christine Karim (a biochemistry professor) is German, his father Naimul Karim (a chemist) is Bangladeshi. He was brought up alongside a brother – Ilias Karim.
He remained in Germany until 1992 when his family immigrated to Minnesota where he got his education from Saint Paul Central High School. From there, he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he studied computer sciences. Much later, he proceeded to Stanford University where he obtained a master’s degree in the field.
The least known co-founder of YouTube, Karim worked with PayPal as one of its early employees while he was still in the university. It was here that he met his future business partners Chad Hurley who was involved in coming up with the PayPal logo and Steve Chen.
In 2002 after eBay bought the payment service, Karim and the other two co-founders decided to come up with a database venture.
During a Super Bowl performance in 2004, Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction that exposed her breasts. While it was something that caught the attention of the world, Karim tried getting the video of the accident on the internet with no success in 2005. Getting other videos such as for Tsunamis and other world events proved to be very hard as well.
This was what kicked in the idea in the head of Karim then 26 to start a video sharing platform and so he proposed the idea to his other two friends who agreed and immediately set to work.
Inasmuch as the idea was originally his, what Jawed Karim wanted more than anything else at the time was to go to computer school and so he opted out of the management of the new company as the three decided that Hurley would become the CEO while the office of the chief technology officer would go to Chen. On his part, he would still be a part, although he would only have smaller stakes.
On Saturday, April 23, 2005, at 8:27 pm, Karim using the username “Jawed” posted the first-ever video on YouTube. The video was “Me at the zoo” and it captured him describing elephants. It was shot by his friend, Yakov Lapitsky.
In 2006, the company was sold to Google for a mouth-watering $1.65 billion.
He has continued to be involved in other things such as photography and writing. He founded the Youniversity Ventures in 2008 alongside Keith Rabois and Kevin Hartz. The company seeks to help people with innovative products in accessing mentorship and capital.
What’s His Net Worth?
Jawed Karim has a net worth that is estimated at $140 million. The programmer made his fortune mainly from the company that he had helped to found, YouTube. After it was bought over by Google, Karim got 137,443 shares of Google at the time which translated to $64 million but with the continuous rise of the stocks of the company, his stake is now more than $140 million.
On his part, Steven Chen had $301 million worth of stake from his 700,000 shares of Google. Thanks to that, his net worth is now $700 million while the last founding member of the video-sharing platform, Chad Hurley got $334 million from the sale of the company.
Wife of The YouTube Co-Founder
The one who has always wanted to be in the background and not the spotlight, there is not so much that is known about the personal life of the YouTube co-founder. Nonetheless, he has been linked to British author, Kia Abdullah who is the author of the novels Life, Love, and Assimilation (Adlibbed, 2006) and Child’s Play (2009).
However, the two are no longer together as Abdullah is now dating photographer Peter Watson who has been described as her partner. On his part, it is unknown if Jawed Karim has a wife or even a girlfriend.
