aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Team play: the YouTube backstory

Stehen J. Dubner quotes Hunter Walk, a brand manager at Google:

Personally it’s been interesting to get to know Steve [Chen] and Chad [Hurley]. … But the YouTube story doesn’t end at Chad and Steve. In fact, one of the underreported factors in their success is the product, design and engineering team they assembled. Almost all of the original team worked together at Paypal/eBay. As YouTube grew incredibly quickly they were able to sound the bell and keep bringing on more former colleagues. All folks who were vetted, trusted by one another, etc. Imagine the time, hiring risk and integration friction they saved - the ability to “get the band back together” was without a doubt a reason that YouTube scaled.