Artifact Details

Title

Chen, Steve oral history, part 1 of 2

Catalog Number

102740492

Type

Document

Description

In this two-part oral history, Steve Chen recounts his path from Taiwan, to Chicago, Carnegie Mellon University and finally to Silicon Valley. His parents brought him to the US at the age of 8. At the age of 15, he entered the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy where he developed a strong interest in computers. This interest led him to eventually attend CMU to pursue a degree in Computer Science.

His life took a major turn when he got a call from an ex classmate who asked him to join a small team at a startup in Silicon Valley called Confinity. He was in his senior year, close to graduation, but decided the idea of joining a startup was more compelling than finishing his degree. In 3 days he was headed west to Silicon Valley.

He found himself on a wild ride as Confinity grew, changed its name to PayPal, and was eventually acquired by eBay. He later left eBay and took all the lessons of a fast-growing startup to co-found another Silicon Valley icon, YouTube. Along with a couple of other eBay veterans, they grew YouTube to a spectacular success and a $1.65B acquisition by Google within two years.

Date

2019-03-19

Contributor

Chen, Steve, Interviewee
Hancock, Marguerite Gong, Interviewer

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, CA, USA

Extent

30 p.

Format

PDF

Category

Transcription

Subject

Google; YouTube; Confinity; PayPal; eBay

Collection Title

CHM Oral History Collection

Credit

Computer History Museum

Lot Number

X8933.2019