Hurley steps down as chief of YouTube
Chad Hurley, one of the three original founders of YouTube, the groundbreaking website that radically altered the media landscape, is stepping down as its chief executive, the San Bruno, Calif., company said Friday.
Hurley, 33, let the news slip Thursday night during a technology conference at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. When asked what he was up to, he said he would be giving up his CEO title and taking on an advisory role.
The company said Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management, would take over the position.
News of Hurley’s resignation did not surprise many YouTube employees, who had been seeing less of Hurley over the last two years as Kamangar took on greater responsibilities of running the online video company.
Kamangar came to YouTube from Google Inc., which bought the website for $1.65 billion in 2006. He and a small team of engineers had come up with AdWords, the revenue engine that drives much of Google’s profit.
Kamangar is said to be charged with finding ways for YouTube to make money from the billions of user-generated online videos it serves up each day. Google has said the site is on the verge of profitability, thanks to Kamangar’s efforts to cultivate the type of premium content that can command higher advertising rates.
Once the bane of mainstream media because of the use of pirated content, YouTube now has become a promotional platform for content.
