YouTubers understood YouTube, often better than the company.

He became his YouTube persona.

Some chalked up Hurley’s success to “luck,” in having created a workable video site just when Google and the world wanted one. But others credited Hurley’s instincts and sensibility for maintaining a service that normal people, even the less technically adept, found easy to use.

Years before Instagram influencers and TikTok stars, these young creatives invented an entirely new model of fame, luring in audiences not yet trained to spend hours of their days absently flipping through the internet.

YouTube could be a threat to copyright owners but it could also be a very valuable tool for businesses looking for audiences.

This is totally different, he thought. Come in and never leave. The more people watched certain videos, the more YouTube fed it to them.

YouTube’s real fuel came from some prescient tweaks the trio made a month later. They added features for people to leave comments and a small button to easily email friends links to clips. And when someone clicked on a video, a row of related ones appeared on the right of the page, prompting them to watch more.

smart, ambitious operators who could channel the wishes of Page and Brin.

“People want to see and be seen,” he would write weeks later.