RSSYouTube Creators Split $650 Million
By Nate Mook | Published February 8, 2007, 3:54 PM
The two co-founders behind YouTube received Google stock valued at about $650 million, according to a regulatory filing made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, while Sequoia Capital, the VC firm that backed YouTube walked away with around $450 million based on Google's current share price.
Google for the first time detailed the $1.65 billion acquisition in the filing, saying YouTube CEO Chad Hurley received 694,087 shares of Google common stock, while co-founder Steve Chen received 625,366 shares and another 68,721 shares held in a trust.
The other big winners in the Google buyout were YouTube's investors, which besides Sequoia included the endowments of Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Oxford and other universities, along with the families behind the Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Getty fortunes.
Jawed Karim, who played an early role in YouTube's development but ended up returning to Stanford University, received around $65 million in stock.
Despite the financial windfall, Google's purchase of YouTube hasn't come without without difficulties. In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google admitted the YouTube acquisition may lead to additional liabilities.
"In addition, our planned acquisition of YouTube may also subject us to additional copyright claims upon the closing of the transaction," Google said. The company warned that any action could cause a loss of revenue.
YouTube has been a popular target for copyright infringement lawsuits, and from the Mountain View, Calif. search company's comments, Google Video is not immune to the same problems. Both allow unmoderated posting of videos, which often includes copyrighted material.
Viacom recently demanded that YouTube pull 100,000 videos that included its content without permission, and new NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker wasted no time taking a stand against YouTube, recently taking the video sharing site and NBCU partner to task for failing to implement copyright protections.
I Hope this will be the downfall of Google. They are a bunch of money grubbers. Lawsuits galore, watch out for the MPAA. HA, HA
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|If YouTube held them off, then Google sure as heck can.
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|Compaired to what Microsoft and MSN? Bahahaha
Google simply works. So what if they want to make money. As long as the search engine works and doesn't shove @#$% down my throat Im all for it.
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|Wow!...amazing what some ideas could lead to, that's good for them. As for me? all I need is a fully functional brain to have ideas to begin with =).
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|After having some consultations from SCORE, I concluded that a good idea does not take you any where. In order for a good idea to works, (1) one need expertise in that area, (2) your product must be in demand. (3) And the most important, you need the staying power, aka money.
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|They split their money while YT is going down in a flaming mess of haters and glitches that they have yet to fix.
I have all but abandoned YT.
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|Those guys are my dads...yes they are a gay couple. Hey...anything to make them both my parents...I get all their leftovers...if any. :p
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|Ahhhh... it seems like the entrepreneurial spirit is still well alive on the internet. Every year, there are a select few web sites that end up revitalizing the way we interact online and end up making BIG money for their creators. All it takes is a really smart idea folks. So put on your thinking caps and get started! You could be sipping on your coffee in your basement in your peejays and come up with it. I wonder what 2007 will bring in that sense.
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|more copyright infringement lawsuits, no doubt.
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