Steve Chen
Age: 30
Co-Founder, YouTube
Why he's influential: Because he fundamentally changed the way we use the internet... and thus, changed the world. Believe it or not, just over four short years ago, there was once a world wide web without YouTube. Today, it's a billion dollar video sharing site boasting millions of users every day. From the advent of YouTube "celebrities" to countless videos of guys getting accidentally hit in the crotch, you can thank company co-founder Steve Chen for all of it.
Legend has it, YouTube's lightning bolt moment apparently happened after Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim -- all early employees of PayPal -- experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. That might just be a cool marketing story for the media. Whatever the case, the domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 15, 2005, and nothing's really ever been the same.
In 2006, Chen and Hurley sold YouTube to Google, Inc. for $1.65 billion. Steve is a very rich man, while the rest of us get to enjoy a massive, ever-growing collection of movie clips, video blogs, shorts films, and everything in between, every day, at any hour of the day. Admit it -- you've experienced something on YouTube that has made you laugh, made you angry, spurred you into action, or just plain made you waste time, one video clip at a time.
See the rest of the 30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30 here.
