The site was bought by Google near the end of 2006 for $1.65bn. Just seven months ago it clocked up one billion downloads a day. The slogan for YouTube is "Broadcast Yourself" which Mr Hurley said was a play on "be yourself and also captured in my mind the essence of the site which was to let people express themselves."
The first person to express themselves on the platform was fellow co-founder Jawed Karim who posted a 19 seconds long video called "Me at the Zoo". It was uploaded on April 23, 2005 and can still be viewed on the site.
Among the other videos that have made YouTube history is that of a wounded girl dying in front of a crowd during the Iranian election protests, a YouTube interview with President Barack Obama, Ronaldinho's Nike advert and singer Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent competition on TV.
Today it hosts channels for everyone from Queen Elizabeth to the Pope and from President Barack Obama to the Iraqi government.
In those early days the site was known for hosting pirated snippets of TV shows or movies. Even today material gets pulled from the site because of issues over copyright.
"They have made a lot of progress about weeding out illegal content," said Allen Weiner senior vice president of research at Gartner.
"They are serious about it. Their future depends on it."
As a result YouTube has been working hard to win over content makers as it modifies its service to stream professional films and cash in on a trend towards internet television.
Industry watchers have said YouTube could possibly become part of the Google "media cloud" where people can access films, books, magazines tv shows and other digitised content.
Analysts have predicted that while the site has struggled to reach profitability since its creation, 2010 could be its year.
Bloomberg News pointed out that the biggest challenge facing YouTube advertising is what makes it so popular - its user generated content. Many advertisers are wary of placing adverts that might run next to videos that might also offend or upset the audience.
