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This is the first YouTube video ever uploaded - it was posted 10 years ago today

Maya Kosoff   

This is the first YouTube video ever uploaded - it was posted 10 years ago today
Tech1 min read

first youtube video

Screenshot/YouTube

Jawed Karim at the zoo.

Ten years ago today, a guy named Jawed Karim posted the first-ever video to YouTube. 

The 18-second video, entitled "Me at the zoo," features Karim, a YouTube cofounder, at the San Diego Zoo standing in front of a bunch of elephants.

"All right, so here we are in front of the elephants," he says.

"The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks, and that's, that's cool. And that's pretty much all there is to say."

Karim posted the low-quality video on YouTube a month before YouTube's public beta launch in May 2005. YouTube officially launched in November 2005. 

When YouTube was bought by Google, Karim got 137,443 shares of stock worth roughly $64 million. Karim went on to found venture capital firm Youniversity Ventures, which has invested in companies including Airbnb.

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