Innovation America Innovation America Accelerating the growth of the GLOBAL entrepreneurial innovation economy
Founded by Rich Bendis

Todd Wasserman

A decade ago, Netflix meant DVDs by mail, video referred to TV and the Internet meant simple text and pictures.

All that changed in about 20 months. That was the period in which three former PayPal employees created YouTube on Feb. 14, 2005 and sold it to Google for $1.6 billion on Oct. 9, 2006.

The journey began with a possibly fictitious dinner party in San Francisco and ended with a breakfast at Denny’s in Redwood City, California. In between, there were maxed out credit cards, arguments over copyrights, humungous rats, a cameo by MC Hammer and the exit of a third, mysterious founder. When it was all over, digital media would be completely transformed.