Quote from momoneythansens:
Is YouTube an example of survivorship bias?
There are 50,000,000 smart guys doing other shiite that don't have YouTube success.
Ok well Youtube was not exactly original, it's not like noone else has tried sharing videos in the last decade. Of course maintaining it through a website requires $millions.
The 3 founders were all early employees of Paypal, all from the same locale in CA (tech world). These guys were in early on the game, they obviously got contacts early on, whether they tried or not. They got financing, quite a lot of it and hit the jackpot.
As much as some idealists hate to deny it, it was a lot of luck. Google is burning cash through their stock and youtube (as well as facebook) got lucky. It's the world of paper pushers, it's like a lottery.
The fact is that Youtube as it was prior to the buyout cannot sustain itself without philanthropic capital (like Wikipedia, for example). So once you explore deeper, you realize that Youtube is like a lottery ticket. It like 1999, but with higher requirements. It's a clever pump & sell out.
BTW, since a venture fund (Sequioa) was involved, who do you think gets most of the money. Anyone who has dealt with venture funds, knows they take a huge chunk of equity, especially after they pumped in over $10mil in a year into an entity with little revenues and little plans for growing revenues. The founders are damn rich but nowhere near the billionaires mainstream media is making them out to be.