1) Chad Meredith Hurley is the founder of AVOS systems, and is also co-founder and previous CEO of the famous video sharing website, YouTube. In 2006, he was number 28 on the list of “50 People Who Matter Now”.
2) Chad has a background in design and fine arts. Since he was a child, he had a strong interest in the arts. In high school, he became interested in computers and programming, and his interests developed into computer design.
3) He attended Twin Valley High School, and was part of the school’s cross-country program. He was also part of the Technology Student Association. After he graduated from high school, he attended the Indiana University in Pennsylvania and graduated with a B.A. in Fine Art.
4) Chad Hurley is happily married to Kathy Clark, daughter of another Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Jim Clark. The low-key couple has two children. He is very private about his family life, and very little information is available regarding his family.
5) Hurley found success when he founded YouTube in 2005. The website went viral very quickly, and became one of the most famous online websites. In 2006, just a year after it was introduced, it was rated as the 10th most visited website with over 34 million visits each month.
6) Hurley and Steve Chen founded YouTube. YouTube was so popular and was considered such an amazing invention, it attracted a lot of interested from companies such as Google. In 2006, just a year after its launch, YouTube was sold to Google for a jaw-dropping price of US$ 1.65 billion.
7) YouTube attracted users almost immediately. After a year of being active, YouTube had 100 million videos uploaded and available to the public. Videos were being uploaded at a rate of 65,000 per day. YouTube now boasts over one billion views per day.
8) During YouTube’s initial days, critics scoffed at its worthiness, waving the website off as a site for amateurs who wanted to upload videos of their pets. Fortunately for Hurley, YouTube proved to be much more than that, and now holds a diverse video archive including how to videos and a venue for people from all over the world to voice their opinions and share news.
9) Hurley’s secret passion is race car driving. In 2009, Hurley heavily invested in a new Formula 1 team, Team US F1. Though the team did prepare for the 2010 season, they unofficially shut down and were unable to race.
10) Chad Hurley has been all over the World Wide Web. He was on the founding team of eBay, and worked in the PayPal section. He worked on the team that was responsible for creating the original PayPal logo.
11) Hurley took an unusual step for those involved in the technology business, and started his own clothing brand, Hlaska. He co-founded the company with Anthony Mazzei in 1994. Hurley has recently begun to devote more attention to the clothing company, after formally resigning from YouTube. Hlaska comes from the combination of the two states, Hawaii and Alaska.
12) During the initial stages of YouTube, Hurley and Chen had around 10 people working for them. This team was quite devoted, as they were working without getting any pay. Hurley motivated his team with inspirational talks and a positive attitude. He told his team, “that we’d work it out.”
13) When it was officially announced that Google would be buying YouTube, the company moved from their old office to a new one in San Bruno. This move was not announced, and when the press came inquiring about the Google buyout, they showed up at the old office which was empty. Hurley and his team were lucky enough to evade reporters unintentionally.
14) The idea of YouTube was formed when founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were going through an honest dilemma. They had wanted to share some videos with friends, but were unable to send it via email, as the files were too large. The two were inspired to find a simpler solution for this, and began to work their magic.
15) Chad is married to Kathy Clark. Kathy is the daughter of Jim Clark, a notable entrepreneur and computer scientist. Clark has been married four times. His fourth and current wife is Kristy Hinze, an Australian actress 36 years his junior. In 2011, the couple welcomed Chad Hurley’s half baby sister in law.
16) Hurley has sound advice for budding entrepreneurs. He advises that one should not think that they know everything about their product and what is needed. He says that one should keep the needs of the targeted community in mind, and be ready to make any changes to the design. Hurley himself had many new ideas for YouTube, but because he did not think people would use those ideas, he did not add them to his design.
17) Hurley recently bought the bookmarking website, Delicious, from Yahoo through his new company, AVOS. Hurley and partner Steve Chen, say this new company will be an experiment for them. They want to see how they can create new ideas within an already existing program.
18) Another project that Hurley is working on is the website called Zeen. This website enables people to make their own magazines. He has workers all over the world, such as China, New Zealand, and San Mateo. Hurley likes to think about his international users as well, and has recently added a Mandarin version of Delicious.
19) Regarding his fashion line of clothing, Hlaska, Hurley says there is not much of difference between Hlaska and his website projects. Hurley says that he and co-founder Anthony Mazzei create clothing items that they would want to wear themselves. The bags and wallets they create are ones that they would want to buy. As was with YouTube, Hurley has created something that he wanted that wasn’t available elsewhere.
20) When asked what Hurley will do differently with managing Hlaska so he does not make any of the same mistakes he made with YouTube, Hurley says the situations were quite different. YouTube grew very quickly and decisions and compromises had to be made without too much thought. With Hlaska, the clothing line has had time to evolve and grow, and Hurley plans to make it a success.