Jawed Karim is supplying one answer to the question, "what if one of the market's biggest success stories was your idea... but no one knew your name?" For him, the answer is, "tell everyone!"
Karim was a co-founder of YouTube, along with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. The general concept for the site, he says, was all his. But he stepped back from day-to-day involvement once the company became formal enough to have job titles, opting instead to embrace the student lifestyle once again. Once he went back to Stanford, he "advised" YouTube while his former PayPal colleagues did most of the legwork.
When Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) came a-knocking, Karim wasn't involved at all, although it seems as if he's going to benefit from the $1.7 billion price tag; he did retain an ownership stake in YouTube.
So now Karim has money (twice over, as all three co-founders made money when PayPal was bought by eBay, Inc. in 2002). He has that sense of pride and personal satisfaction that you must feel when your brainchild is considered and found a-billion-and-change-worth of worthy by the market. What he doesn't have, though, is fame.
Why don't you make a movie about it, Karim? You could put it on this thing called YouTube ...
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