If you want to build a mass audience, make your product easy and fun to use. That was the first priority of founders Steve Chen, Chad Hurley (and we learn only recently of third co-founder Jawed Karim). Once they built the interface and it became incredibly popular, the priority was making sure its servers could handle all the traffic so the user experience didn't deteriorate. Without that laser-like focus and determination to make the site accessible and entertaining for users, it wouldn't have become the $1.65 billion property it is today.

Don't load up on staff. Here's some shockingly simple math: At a $1.65 billion price and roughly 60 employees, every head at YouTube is valued at $27.5 million. But you can bet they aren't all getting paid that much (hopefully the Hurley and Chen will treat them right). Bottom line -- the company is more valuable because expenses are so low. The low headcount proves better than any other metric that the business is scalable -- and that's what dealmakers, focused on future profit margins, care about.

Be original. Maybe the YouTube founders don't deserve credit for originality as much as for their ability to tap into all the the wonderful, weird and creative forces flowing on the Web. But the success of YouTube has as much to do with its ability to entertain, mystify and heartwarm as it does with its technology. There must have a been a point where YouTube's founders felt the site take on a life of its own as users fueled its growth. Rather than try to contain that energy and originality, they were smart enough to let it run wild.