Back in April 2006, when YouTube was just over a year old and nothing more than a repository of bowling ball-sharp pixels that look like they were filmed with a broom, two boys in China uploaded a video of themselves lip-syncing to the Backstreet Boys’ “As Long As You Love Me.”
That video would go on to fetch YouTube a $2.2 billion acquisition from Google.
YouTube’s current CEO, Susan Wojcicki, was in charge of overseeing Google video at the time and was so amused by the performance that she immediately saw the bigger picture of what this video-sharing platform was capable of. It was like her lightbulb moment, one that she shared on stage that year at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit.
“That was the video that made me realize that ‘Wow, people all over the world can create content, and they don’t need to be in a studio’,” Wojcicki said.
Six months after the video was posted, Wojcicki led Google through the acquisition of YouTube, which is now worth upwards of $50 billion. As for the Chinese Back Dorm Boys, their most recent release came in 2007.
Apparently people didn’t care who they were, where they’re from, or what they did.
Watch it in all its glory here:
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