Oral History of Steve Chen, Part 1 of 2
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Oral History of Steve Chen, part 1 of 2 Interviewed by: Marguerite Gong Hancock Recorded March 19, 2019 Mountain View, CA CHM Reference number: X8933.2019 © 2019 Computer History Museum Oral History of Steve Chen Hancock: Today is March 19th, 2019. I'm Marguerite Gong Hancock from the Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum and we're thrilled to be here with Steve Chen. Steve, so great to have you here, and welcome for your oral history. Chen: Great. Looking forward to this. Been looking forward to it for over 10 years, 15 years since YouTube started. I've been keen about giving the entire history of what we've built. Hancock: It’s so important. Here at the museum we are grateful for the opportunity to capture your story and to help people understand and to receive some inspiration about where you've gone, from early influences to your idea to impact that's really changed the world. Let’s start at the very beginning. If you don't mind, for the record, can you tell us your full name and where you were born? And what was life like for you in the home that you were raised in? Chen: Sure. I was born outside of the U.S. in Taipei, Taiwan in 1978, and that marks me as being 40-years-old as of now. Hancock: Congratulations. Chen: I am actually glad that I'm finally 40 because I think that when we started YouTube, I was in my twenties and all the interviewers were in their forties. There was always a generational gap between the questions and the answers that I would give. I have a much better idea and context of what YouTube has begun. So, I was born in Taiwan. I came to the U.S, but it was not the Bay Area, it was Chicago. It wasn't a decision by me; it was a decision by my parents. I think that there was an opportunity for my father to open a branch of his office in Chicago and he took it in part as a career development decision. A large part in influencing his decision was to give his two kids, myself and my brother who's two years younger than me, the American Dream, this opportunity to be able to do something in America . At the time, no idea. At the time, it was flying on United Airlines and not knowing the English words to ask the question, "Can I have some additional water? You know, where is the bathroom?" I still remember sort of landing in O'Hare Airport there in Chicago. And even then, I don't remember much when I was 8 years old, but I do remember touching down and having just these expectations, having never been in the U.S. before about what the U.S. was going to look like, as opposed to where I grew up in Taiwan. Hancock: And how had those been shaped, those expectations? From media? From stories? From your parents talking to you? Chen: I want to say that when I was growing up, there were always stories and tales. I think they were exaggerated to a degree, to the point where when I landed, I was slightly disappointed <laughs> at what I saw. This whole vision of a dreamland— dreamland being equivalent to the grandest visions that you have appearing in your dreams — wasn't quite that in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I think that it gave me the opportunity to be able to feel like I was finally sort of having a little bit more control in the direction of the steps I want to take. That's at an early age, but I think that that's where it first started and it grew over the years . In many ways, I think that is true to CHM Ref: X8933.2019 © 2019 Computer History Museum Page 2 of 30 Oral History of Steve Chen the sentiments in the decision -making of my parents, and that is the first step in what led me to what I am today. Hancock: Interesting. So this proactive sense of making a conscious decision for your family to move to a new place, a new land, pursue new opportunities, you feel like that led to you being a risk taker or explorer . Say a little bit more about how that early decision really shaped you, obviously not only where you lived and the school you went to, but these sort of deeper attributes. Can you say more? Chen: It’s difficult for an 8-year-old to understand the sort of great contextual vision of what third grade is going to do to the rest of his life. However, looking back upon it, during those days, I was putting myself into a completely different environment, not understanding even the language of what people were speaking around me. Every minute of a 24-hour day out of 7 days in a week was completely different from what I had seen 7 years prior. Starting from that moment, there's a bit of fear. Luckily, I had my brother with me, so it wasn't just me by myself alone going through this journey. I think you learn a language quickly. You adapt to new social environments very quickly at that age, and so in a very quick period, I'm going to measure it in mere months, we became sort of grounded in our new home . Home probably for the first few months was still Taiwan, but over the course of a few months, it gradually became U.S., it became Chicago. You start over that period . Instead of your favorite foods being food from Taiwan, it became Chicago-style hot dogs and deep-dish pizza . And so that very quickly became where, I would say now, where I grew up was really Chicago, Illinois. Hancock: This was Prospect Heights, is that right? Chen: That's right, that's right. Hancock: What was that like for you, the school? What were your early passions? You're making this incredible change in language and culture and context, and what kinds of things at that age besides making a change were you interested in as you finished your elementary school? Chen: I think there were two parallel sort of journeys that I was taking to be able to fully integrate myself. There was one, which is just learning English. There was a considerable part of the day that was focused on just learning English. And then there was everything else around it. And everything else around it was truly just a mystery. But over a period of time you start to understand what is going on in the other minutes, the other hours of the day, what is going on with the social environment with the other kids in the class, with the actual teachers. And so, during that period, for the first few months, it was really being able to immerse myself in the environment. Quickly thereafter, I started to —it's far before computers or anything of that sort— but there was a bit of kind of encouragement to explore a bit. School lets out, you go home. You're in the Midwest. Growing up in Taipei versus moving to the suburbs of the Midwest, there is a big difference, not just with language and social context but in just what you do: the activities that you do, or the lack of activities that you do . And so, I think that— CHM Ref: X8933.2019 © 2019 Computer History Museum Page 3 of 30 Oral History of Steve Chen Hancock: Could you give a few examples of the context of Taipei versus Prospect Heights ? What were some of those things that were so different? Chen: Growing up in Taipei, in that environment, was a little bit more rigid in terms of what is happening throughout the periods of the day. There's the school, but more importantly, it's what happens at 3:30 and 4:00 and 5:00 and 6:00. Whereas I recall, when I was growing up in Prospect Heights, once school lets out and you get off that bus, pretty much from you 3:00 PM until dinnertime was just completely open to whatever you wanted to do. Given that liberty to be able to do whatever you want , it does take a little bit of creativity to just find what there is to do. And so instead of it being a scheduled calendar where everything has already been pre-decided, and not by you, by somebody else that's already filled in your calendar, all of a sudden, you're in a situation where you are deciding what you want to do. A part of that experience led me to kind of self-educate: what are the things that I like doing, what are the things that I don't like doing, decisions that I think are good decisions, decisions that I think are bad decisions. It was everything from running around the creek that we were living in in the Midwest, jumping across with ropes and catching crayfish. There are just things that even if I had dreamed of it would not have been possible in Taipei. In a lot of ways, I do think that I benefitted from being able to see both sides of it. What I had differently in the Midwest is to have grown up and to have lived and been born in Taipei to be able to see the difference.