YouTube Co-Founder Leaves Chief Executive Role

Clint Boulton eWEEK USA 2012. Ziff Davis Enterprise Inc. All Rights Reserved,

Google’s Chad Hurley is to step down from YouTube to work on other projects, amid ongoing reorganisation at the video service

Google’s reorganisation of YouTube continued last week week with the revelation that YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley was stepping down to work on other services at the search engine.

Hurley, the face of YouTube since he and fellow co-founders Steve Chen and Jawed Karim sold YouTube to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion (£1.02bn), will serve as an adviser.

YouTube growth

“I will continue to serve as an adviser and am excited to witness the next phase of YouTube’s growth,” Hurley said in a statement.

That growth to this point includes 24 hours of video uploaded per minute, with more than 2 billion videos watched daily.

Google also said this month it is making money from more than 2 billion views per week, with YouTube leading Google’s display ad business to a $2.5bn run rate.

The move, which TechCrunch uncovered on 28 October, comes more than a month after YouTube reorganised around content partnerships.

YouTube installed Dean Gilbert as YouTube’s Global Head of Content, and more quietly tucked in the company’s bold Google TV effort to marry web and channel surfing.

Gilbert, who previously worked on Google TV, is charged with turning YouTube into a more serious broadcast medium for television via YouTube Leanback, the Google TV application that lets users watch video after video without interruption.

Content partnerships

Overseeing Gilbert and YouTube is Salar Kamangar, who will take the chief executive role at the unit.

“The reorganisation YouTube did over a month ago focused on streamlining our operations so we could make faster decisions and align team goals with the company’s overall business objectives,” Google told eWEEK.

“Just like any rapidly growing organisation, it is important for YouTube to evolve and grow to ensure further success in the future.”

Co-founder Kim left YouTube shortly after selling it to Google. Chen left YouTube in 2008 to work on other Google projects. Hurley stayed as his company weathered a $1bn lawsuit from Viacom, which accused YouTube of airing copyrighted videos.

A federal judge found that Google and YouTube removed copyrighted content in accordance with the law. Viacom has appealed the ruling.