YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley is stepping down from the video sharing site’s CEO position, with Google’s Salar Kamangar stepping into the CEO role. Google bought YouTube back in 2006 for a then-stunning $1.6 billion, and at the F.ounders conference in Dublin last week, Hurley indicated he has been serving mostly in an advisory capacity for the last two years, with Kamangar handling the site’s day-to-day operations. Hurley’s resignation makes Kamangar’s role official…and solidifies Google’s control over YouTube.
Hurley is the last of YouTube’s co-founders to step down from leadership roles: co-founders Steve Chen and Jawed Karin had previously left the company. Before serving as YouTube’s CEO, Hurley was YouTube’s CTO, and has worked on other engineering projects at Google. In a statement, Hurley indicated he would stay on with the company in an advisory role. Hurley also runs a fashion business called HIaska—an amalgamation of “Hawaii” and “Alaska”—which will apparently now receive the majority of his attention.
Kamangar was one of the founder of Google’s wildly successful AdWords online advertising business, and Hurley expressed his confidence that Kamangar would be able to drive YouTube’s business to new successes—especially since he has already been responsible for much of YouTube’s daily operations.
