YouTube founders' $1.65B Google sale now worth $550B—a 333x miss

What happened

YouTube's three cofounders—Chad Hurley, Steven Chen, and Jawed Karim—sold the video platform to Google for $1.65 billion（約2600億円） in fall 2006, receiving stock worth $345 million（約550億円）, $326 million（約520億円）, and $64 million（約100億円） respectively. YouTube is now valued at an estimated $550 billion（約88兆円）, a 333x increase from the sale price.

Why it matters

The founders' early exit illustrates a recurring pattern among tech entrepreneurs who sell ahead of exponential growth. Had Hurley and Chen retained the same ownership stake they held at sale, each could potentially have claimed more than $100 billion（約16兆円） in today's valuation. YouTube generated $54.2 billion（約8.7兆円） in revenue in 2024 and topped $60 billion（約9.6兆円） in 2025, making it larger than Netflix.

What to watch

The article notes that it remains unclear whether YouTube's massive growth would have been achieved without backing from a larger corporate owner like Google—suggesting the founders faced a genuine trade-off between early cash certainty and the risk of never reaching full potential.