Steve Chen is a pioneering technology entrepreneur, digital media innovator and the Co-Founder and Founding Chief Technology Officer of YouTube. Best known for helping create the world's largest video-sharing platform, Steve transformed the way billions of people consume, create and share content online. A member of the renowned "PayPal Mafia" and an Emmy Award recipient, he is hired as a speaker for his insights into entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, product development and building globally disruptive businesses.
Born in Taiwan before moving to suburban Chicago with his family, Steve developed an early passion for technology and computer science. He went on to earn a degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before joining PayPal as one of its early employees. There, he worked alongside future Silicon Valley leaders including Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, becoming part of the influential group later known as the PayPal Mafia. It was at PayPal that he met future YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim.
In 2005, Steve, Chad and Jawed launched YouTube with the vision of making it easy for anyone to upload and share video online. As Founding Chief Technology Officer, Steve built the technical foundations that enabled the platform's extraordinary growth. Less than two years later, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion, one of the most significant technology acquisitions of its era. Steve remained with the company to oversee its continued expansion as it scaled to hundreds of millions of users worldwide. After leaving YouTube, he co-founded AVOS Systems with Chad Hurley before launching the live-streaming food network Nom.com in 2016. He has also worked closely with Google Ventures and continues to advise and invest in innovative technology companies.
Steve's contributions to the technology industry have been recognised with numerous honours. In 2006, Business 2.0 named him among "The 50 People Who Matter Now" in business, while Asian Scientist included him in its "15 Asian Scientists to Watch" list in 2011. He was later inducted as a Laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the prestigious Order of Lincoln. In 2019, Steve received an Emmy Award for his lifetime contributions to technology and digital media. As a keynote speaker, he shares first-hand lessons on innovation, entrepreneurship, scaling technology businesses and creating products that fundamentally change how the world communicates.
