YouTube was created on February 14, 2005, by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in California.

Quick Scoop: When Was YouTube Created?

  • Official creation date: February 14, 2005 (Valentine’s Day).
  • Place: San Mateo, California (company later headquartered in San Bruno, California).
  • Founders: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim — all former PayPal employees.
  • First video (“Me at the Zoo”): uploaded April 23–24, 2005, by Jawed Karim.
  • Public launch (site open to everyone): December 15, 2005.
  • Google acquisition: November 2006 for about 1.65 billion dollars.

In simple terms: the idea and company were born on February 14, 2005, and the public YouTube we know started rolling out later that same year.

Mini timeline

  1. February 14, 2005 – YouTube, Inc. created and domain registered.
  1. April 2005 – First video uploaded: “Me at the Zoo.”
  1. May 2005 – Early beta version online.
  1. December 15, 2005 – Public launch.
  1. November 2006 – Google buys YouTube.

SEO bits

  • Focus keyword: “when was YouTube created” — direct answer: February 14, 2005.
  • Meta-style summary: YouTube was created on February 14, 2005, by three former PayPal employees and later launched publicly in December 2005 before being acquired by Google in 2006.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.