Google buys YouTube in $1.65 billion stock deal
Google has announced a $1.65 billion stock deal to buy hot young video-sharing website YouTube. “The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement. YouTube soared to online popularity after its launch in February 2005. The com p a ny cl a i m s t h at m o re than 100 million v i d e o s a re watched daily by visitors to the f re e website, wh i ch features content provided by users. YouTube would continue to operate independently with its headquarters in San Bruno, California, after the acquisition is complete, according to Google. All of YouTube’s 65 employees were to remain with the company. In unofficial Silicon Valley tradition, YouTube was launched on its meteoric rise from a garage. It announced a first round of funding of $3.5 million from Sequoia Capital in November of last