Chad Meredith Hurley (born January 24, 1977) is an American webmaster and businessman who serves as the advisor and former chief executive officer (CEO) of YouTube. He also co-founded MixBit. In October 2006, he and Steve Chen sold YouTube for $1.65 billion to Google. Hurley worked in eBay's PayPal division—one of his tasks involved designing the original PayPal logo—before co-founding YouTube with fellow PayPal colleagues Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. Hurley was primarily responsible for the tagging and video-sharing aspects of YouTube.
Hurley founded YouTube in 2005 with Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. On October 16, 2006, Chen and Hurley sold YouTube to Google Inc. (now Google LLC) for $1.65 billion. It was reported in The Wall Street Journal that Hurley's share was $345.6M at Google's February 7, 2007, closing stock price of $470.01. He received 694,087 Google shares directly and another 41,232 shares in a trust.
YouTube's other two co-founders, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, received 625,366 shares and 137,443 shares, respectively valued at $326.2M and $64.6M. The Journal's report was based on Google's registration statement with SEC filed on February 7, 2007.
Hurley stepped down as CEO of YouTube in October 2010 and stated he would stay on as an advisor of YouTube, allowing Salar Kamangar to take over the CEO position.
