Steve Chen

Steve Chen
Steve Chen

For his entrepreneurial spirit as a co-founder of YouTube and for his internet technology innovations.

Steve Chen was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of YouTube. He first arrived in Silicon Valley in 1999 to join PayPal and later joined forces with two of his colleagues to develop YouTube.

Chen was instrumental in building YouTube into a viral video phenomenon. He helped lead YouTube through the Google acquisition for $1.65 billion less than a year after launching the site. As the company's key technologist, Chen is credited with developing the company’s massive data centers and helping build YouTube into a premier entertainment destination and one of the most popular Web sites on the Internet today. 

In 2005, he joined Facebook for several months before starting YouTube. He is also co-founder of AVOS Systems, which builds a common technology platform to speed app development and whose products help people create, find, and share multimedia content.

He was honored with The Grainger College of Engineering Department of Computer Science’s Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2014.

Degrees

  • Attendee, Computer Science, The Grainger College of Engineering