♪ emily: it's changed the way we watch videos, redefined going viral, challenged to -- challenged governments, and even launched the career of justin bieber. today youtube, now owned by google, has more than one billion users uploading 300 hours of video every minute. it all started a decade ago with a trip to the zoo, and one of the founders says he is not quite done changing the way we are entertained. joining me today on "studio 1.0," youtube cofounder and former ceo chad hurley. chad, thank you for being here.

chad hurley: thanks for having me. emily: in 2005, you guys activated the url to youtube.com, right? chad hurley: on valentine's day. emily: on valentine's day. chad hurley: so romantic. emily: describe the last 10 years. chad hurley: for me it has surpassed all of my expectations. we were simply trying to solve a problem for ourselves and our friends -- how do you share videos that are sitting on your desktop? just by solving our own problems and coming up with a simple way to re-encode these videos and allow people to share these videos on the web, that unlocks the potential for everyone else as well. emily: the first video on youtube really was one of you guys going to the zoo. >> the thing about these guys is that they have really, really , really long trunks. chad hurley: it's not a cat video, but it's not bad. emily: almost 19 million views. chad hurley: yeah. that video and many others, we

uploading internally to test the -- were uploading internally to test the system, and shortly after that, we started receiving other uploads. emily: who is that? chad hurley: jawed. he is one of the three of us who started the site. there is also steve chen. jawed decided to leave the company before he launched the service or had a chance to raise funding. he decided to go back to school. it has been me and steve's journey after raising the funds the wave ofriding this video and trying to deal with the growth, eventually ending up at google. emily: you grew up in pennsylvania. indiana university of pennsylvania. study design there. -- studied design there. what kind of kid were you? chad hurley: i wasn't the most academic kid. i was curious about things. i really enjoyed art. for me, growing up, just had of data link, i guess. -- dabbling, i guess.

you don't necessarily need to be an engineer to make a start up, you have to have ideas. you need to follow through on creating something others can relate to. for me, art and startups are not too different. emily: how did you end up in silicon valley? chad hurley: i read about a small start up. at the time the company was cofinity, and they had a product called paypal. i graduated college and was deciding what i wanted to do. i was sitting at home and simply wrote them an e-mail, because on their website it said they were looking for a web designer. i have a design background. luckily, they responded, and about a week later i was in silicon valley working for them. emily: and the rest is history. chad hurley: the rest is history, but i had to find a place to live. that was a challenge. when i moved out here in the summer of 1999, you couldn't even find a place to live. i had to sleep in someone's floor. emily: because there were so

many people coming here? chad hurley: yeah, during the dot com boom. emily: as i understand it, you designed the first paypal logo that they use to this day? chad hurley: they have changed it over the years. emily: but do you see your design in the paypal logo today? it is an iteration of what you did, right? chad hurley: it is. emily: what determined how everyone in the paypal mafia went their separate ways, and how did you and steve end up together? chad hurley: after i left with paypal, i met up with steve and other engineers. at the time, everyone had a digital camera that had a video mode. was right before cameras took off on cell phones, but people had video files on their desktop that they couldn't share. how would we make it as easy as sending an e-mail? that's really what inspired us. emily: this was 2005, before smartphones and before high-speed internet was the norm -- how difficult was it to get this off the ground?

chad hurley: because we knew nothing about video, we were not scared about getting into it. same thing with paypal and payments. if we realized how much fraud and hoops we would have to jump through, we probably would've never started the project. same thing with video -- dealing with bandwidth and the streaming issues, because of that we were able to hit the video market at the right time -- when people were getting broadband and getting devices in their hands. we were in the right place at the right time. emily: you sold to google the next year. it was only 18 months. for $1.65 billion. chad hurley: it was a rocket ship. thisntinued to be kind of journey where we were holding on for our lives. even after we became a part of google, things accelerated from there. obviously, we have more resources, but at the time we sold, we only had 67 people with

in the company. we had two or three engineers, i.t. guys that would run around the country maintaining our data centers. at the time, we didn't have the luxury of plugging into amazon web services. you had to actually go out and build euro machines. -- your own machines. beyond that, we were threatening the internet industry -- the googles, yahoos, and microsofts continued to retain their control, but you also had the traditional media world and others wanting to retain control of distribution. they were attacking us for not doing the right things around copyright, when in reality, we are building more tools than our competitors, and more policies and anyone else to deal with these problems.

we actually create solutions for them -- they can monetize this. the music industry earns billions of dollars off of youtube on an annual basis. with all of these people looking at us, and for us struggling to keep things up and running, we had no other choice than to be acquired by someone. for us, we were lucky enough to be acquired by google, who in my mind took a chance on us, and really youtube probably would not be here today, or what it is today, without their support. i am really thankful that we ended up there. emily: so you thought you had to sell. chad hurley: i have no doubt that if we tried to go alone, we would eventually be crushed by lawsuits or not being able to scale. we would have loved to remain independent. we wanted to see what we could remaino ipo or independent, but other forces

did not allow us to do so. emily: what was it like transitioning to google? chad hurley: one of the things ergei and the survey -- s -- especially eric told us when we first met them was continue , to run this yourself. continue your culture. we just care about growth. let us know if anyone gets in your way. emily: there was always a question about how youtube was going to make money. what was so hard about it? ♪

emily: until more recently, there was always a question about how youtube was going to make money. what was so hard about it? what was so hard about building it into a business? chad hurley: i think people were internally -- even externally -- looking for this big answer. there has to be something other than just another video. at the end of the day, i think it is all about targeting and providing choice to the viewer. there will be more than enough ways to monetize the site just

looking at traditional means of advertising, but people are always looking for this bigger answer. emily: you stepped down as ceo in 2010 -- why did you leave? chad hurley: i wanted new challenges. i felt like youtube was in great hands, and that we had seen things through as a business. there were all these doubts when they first acquired us, but by the time i left all of those doubts were answered. it really had turned into a true business for google. emily: how much do you think youtube is handicapped by not having you there? chad hurley: youtube has done the right things and i think it will continue to. what youtube is dealing with today is more competition, just because videos are ubiquitous now. at the end of the day, i think it is just about youtube diversifying its business model. emily: what do you mean? chad hurley: there are different ways people are consuming video. youtube has been one-dimensional for the most part, which is

advertising. -- with just advertising. emily: what other business models should youtube be implementing? chad hurley: you have different forms of vod. it is giving these tools directly to the creators and letting them determine how they want to monetize their content. if they want to charge their subscribers, and how much, and if they are going to charge, what type of content? there are other models to monetize. i think it is just more about options for the creators and providing tools, helping people create better content. they tried to do that with the studios, but i think there are more tools that can help the regular creator create content. emily: you think youtube should be charging consumers to watch certain videos. chad hurley: i think that is an option they have. emily: and should be paying creators more. because youtube has always been criticized for not paying creators enough. chad hurley: i think youtube

should be more transparent with their terms and not make it a negotiation. it should be a level playground. -- playing ground. part of the reason for starting youtube was monetizing video. to do that, the traditional studios and networks should not get a better deal than the creator. emily: so what is a fair percentage? chad hurley: who knows, it is up to them. emily: more than 50%? chad hurley: potentially. emily: netflix, hbo, yahoo!, , doesfeed -- buzzfeed are all getting into video. twitter is getting into video. what is the future of youtube, in this world where original content is king, but there are so many places to find it? chad hurley: it is a good thing, because it means more advertisers are going to move into online video. is the ceo of youtube now.

how often do you talk to her and say, hey, susan, you guys should charge for dod? vod? the od -- chad hurley: we trade e-mails from time to time, but she has done a great job at google, and i am sure she will do a great job at youtube. we have had a chance to meet from time to time. i had not been to the youtube offices in a while. i went back for lunch. i was surprised they are continuing to expand their offices. it is always a treat to see that, but just to speak with her in person, she is focused on the right things. i have told her the same things i have told you -- i think you have to go back to your core. it is about providing tools to your creators. it is about supporting the community. some of the reasons i left -- i felt like i didn't want to stick around to be the token founder. it's actually about creating tools and opportunities for people to create better content. emily: you recently sparred with mark cuban online, who claimed youtube couldn't get anything

right, so you tweeted, knowing -- registering domain, $20, selling domain, $1.65 billion. knowing mark cuban is still bitter, priceless. how do you respond to the critics? chad hurley: i'm just giving mark a hard time because he likes to talk a lot. a little tweet i thought he could take. but, there are a lot of people who have opinions, but for the most part, i feel like people should focus on their own businesses and focus on then -- them creating opportunities for themselves instead of complaining about someone else. at the end of the day, sometimes it does come down to jealousy . it comes down to missing that opportunity that he had with broadcast.com. he had a lot of the right ideas, but he was just ahead of his time. in terms of the opportunities that youtube is going to

provide, or has provided, i think they will only continue to grow. the audience is larger than ever, which means the opportunity for google is bigger than ever. emily: do you have a favorite cat video? chad hurley: there are too many. emily: i do have a favorite cap video, it's called "surprised kitty," it's pretty awesome. chad hurley: i know that one. i know them all. emily: you knew it! has money and success changed you? chad hurley: i don't think so. i still get up everyday and go to work. there are too many opportunities to solve problems and create solutions for people. emily: you are at kim and kanye's engagement. chad hurley: yes. emily: they were not happy with you afterwards. what happened? ♪ emily: let's talk about mixbit,

what you are doing now. where is mixbit today? chad hurley: it is still a work in progress. we are still looking for insight that will go toward what we are focusing on -- collaborative video work. it is an app where you can invite individuals into a project and everyone can contribute video clips or photos, pick a theme, and we automate the editing process, so we will push that content together and create something visually interesting that you can share with others that you otherwise would not have the time or knowledge to do yourself. this was coming off the heels of me and steve working together initially on an incubator. we had all these other projects and offices working at the same time, so that slowed things down. my advice for startups out there is focus on one thing and do well. emily: so no incubator. chad hurley: yeah, the team did not know who to listen to -- me or steve. where we are now with mixbit, i

think we have a chance to figure this out. emily: how hard is it to succeed as a video-related startup? chad hurley: there are more people with video, more people with devices. more people are interacting with video than ever. it is interesting to see how it plays out, but i think the -- it captured people's imagination. that is the biggest challenge -- rising above the noise, and finding what people have an emotional connection with. it is always a journey to find that. if you don't put pressure on yourselves -- people ask about replicating success with youtube. that's not what i'm out to do. emily: why not retire? -- hurley: uh emily: you certainly could. chad hurley: a lot of people can retire, but, again, life is not about sitting around, it is

about making a difference. that continues to drive me. emily: what do you think of facebook and twitter's efforts in video? chad hurley: with facebook, you have a feed. people are coming there to consume stuff. i don't know if it is directed yet. they haven't really nailed search. i don't know if people go there to search for anything in particular other than their feeds. they will have to build a more dedicated hub towards video, or push people into searching, making that more of a habit, but auto-playing videos in the feed -- they talk about the numbers, but i don't think that counts as much yet. emily: you were at kim and kanye's engagement. they were not happy with you afterwards. chad hurley: i don't know why. emily: what happened? chad hurley: my friend was in town. he said, let's go to this thing that kanye is having in the city. we didn't really know what it was. on the way up we were searching and, oh, it is kim's birthday, so it must be a birthday party. it turned out it wasn't.

itook some video, and posted until the next day after i saw other people posting videos on instagram, so i did not think it was a big deal. i asked my friend and he didn't seem to mind will stop -- to mind. after it got out there and got attention, kim wrote me an e-mail. the rest is history. emily: they sued you. chad hurley: yes. emily: so what happened? what was the result of that? chad hurley: they are still suing me. we will wait and see what happens when this actually airs, but it is an ongoing process. emily: but you believe you are in the right? chad hurley: of course. emily: did you have to sign that something in there? chad hurley: i did sign something eventually at the end of the night. emily: but not at the beginning? chad hurley: no. interesting. emily: interesting. you are also investing in sports franchises. you bought into the golden state warriors -- chad hurley: it is a great group of people to work with.

when those guys took over the guber, i knewr those guys, and i knew they were going to build a great organization. just being a sports fan, and also understanding the world of media. sports will retain their value over time, because advertisers value live audiences, and you cannot replicate a live event. that is some of the reasons i got involved. plus, it doesn't hurt when they are doing so well now. emily: give me a pinch me moment. moment where you were like, oh my god, that was amazing. chad hurley: we had a chance to do debates on youtube -- presidential debates. there were some surreal moments where you are kind of backstage, meeting all the democratic and republican nominees before a debate, just standing in line and shaking their hands. it was definitely a surreal moment. emily: what is next for chad hurley?

chad hurley: continue to focus on mixbit. we have a great team. i just think there is a tremendous opportunity in the world of video. if you're talking about life, or what we are providing -- automated editing and collaboration. emily: what is the myth of chad hurley, and what is the reality? chad hurley: the myth is that every startup has a grand plan , that we knew what paypal was going to become from day one, or we knew that youtube was going to be huge, but the reality is that no one knows, not even me. all you have to do is take a chance and put yourself out there, and hopefully what you create resonates with others. soly: chad hurley, thank you much for joining us. it has been great to have you. chad hurley: thank you. ♪

♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: tom friedman is here. it is a pulitzer prize-winning author and a foreign policy, it's -- a foreign-policy columnist for the new york times. last week he spoke with president barack obama about the nuclear deal with iran soon after it had been announced. here's how the president defined the agreement with tom. president obama: we are not measuring this deal by whether we are solving every problem that can be traced back to iran, whether we are eliminating all their nefarious activities around the globe.