YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The idea for the platform was conceived during the dot-com bubble, when the founders were working at PayPal. They realized that there was a lack of easy-to-use video sharing platforms and saw an opportunity to create one. Initially, the founders intended to create a video sharing platform for people to share personal videos, but they soon realized that there was a much larger market for sharing other types of videos, such as music videos, comedy clips, and educational content. The founders launched YouTube in February 2005, and it quickly gained popularity, becoming one of the most popular video-sharing platforms in the world.