Steve Chen is best known for co-founding YouTube in 2005, alongside Chad Hurley, to simplify online video sharing. He played a crucial role in building YouTube into a viral sensation and was instrumental in its acquisition by Google for $1.65 billion, less than a year after its launch.

Chen was an early employee at PayPal, where he met his future YouTube co-founders. He briefly worked at Facebook before fully dedicating himself to YouTube. As CTO, he developed the company’s massive data centers, oversaw engineering and product development, and managed site operations, significantly contributing to YouTube’s status as a premier entertainment platform.

Post-YouTube, Chen has been involved with Google Ventures, supporting innovative companies. He was honored as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and received an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2024, he launched the Innovate Taiwan Program at Stanford University to connect Silicon Valley with Taiwanese startups.