Jawed Karim just might be my hero of the year. Can you imagine going to school at Stanford with no worries about cost because you were involved in the PayPal sale to eBay? He’s had it made to the tune of several million dollars for going to Stanford and getting his master’s degree.
Now, Google (another drooling success story), wants to buy YouTube.com for billions of dollars. That’s right billions with a “B.” Jawed is one of the intellectual contributors that made YouTube possible and a smashing success.
What is there not to like about a guy that gets described like this by the New York Times reporter doing a story on him?
On Wednesday, during a walk across campus and a visit to his dorm room and the computer sciences building where he takes classes, Mr. Karim described himself as a nerd who gets excited about learning. Nothing in his understated demeanor suggests he is anything other than an ordinary graduate student, and he attracted little attention on campus in jeans, a blue polo shirt, a tan jacket and black Puma sneakers.
Mr. Karim said he might keep a hand in entrepreneurship, and he dreams of having an impact on the way people use the Internet โ something he has already done. Philanthropy may have some appeal, down the road. But mostly he just wants to be a professor. He said he simply hopes to follow in the footsteps of other Stanford academics who struck it rich in Silicon Valley and went back to teaching.
Quote from the New York Times dated 10/12/2006
I will be following his efforts for a long time to come.
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