Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch.
She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More
This week, Technode’s chief editor Gang Lu interviewed YouTube founder Steve Chen backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing. As we covered earlier, Chen and our own Sarah Lacy chatted on stage about the $1.65 billion YouTube acquisition.
Chen told Lu that he “believes in the entrepreneurship inside China,” and the speed at which innovation is taking place in the country. While the competition is tough for startups in China, Chen cautions that you will live in regret if you don’t try your ideas. When Lu asked if social bookmarking service Delicious (which Chen and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley bought from Yahoo this year) can be in China, Chen responded with a “We’ll see.”
You can watch the full interview with Chen below.
Hello everyone. This is TechCrunch TV. I'm [xx] from TechCrunch, and from Tech [xx]. The guy sitting beside me, well obviously you know that, it's Steve Chen from, the co-founder of YouTube. Because, probably I think it's your first time giving a public speech in China, right? Yeah. Yes, this will be the first time.Yeah, So, probably I'm going to switch to Chinese, just to give a try. How about that?Alright, let's try. Let's try. Yeah.Well, I said, I went to the U.S. when I was in first grade and so, in second grade. So, my Chinese is going to be first grade level, so keep it simple.I'll try, okay? Yeah. Yeah yeah, no. I'm going to use English a little bit. I was looking forward to coming here. The main reason after talking with KyPhoo and talking with TechCrunch about being here is I really believe in the entrepreneurs inside China, and a lot of the innovation that's happening in China and the speed in which things are happening. I'd love to just come here come a story and interact other people and thinking about doing something, to do something.
I used to do I used to do in like Angel Investing?
I am doing some Angel investing but over the last years I think that some people like to be only the Indo basement side of things some people like to be they are staying up at night in working with, working at the products that I thank more feeding more what I like they do on my personality. Yeah. I think have talked about you to also how it started on stage, maybe You can swim even more time about just about paying to you said but opportunity now in China.. And you have seen lots of young so what is your suggestion for him? No I think we are very simple Police to go ahead and do it started I think that if you look at it you too I think it is a not to pack myself under bag, but I think Its a good example because its an example where the competition and the infrastructure operational cost for the service, I mean, it is a video service so video streaming the amount of storage that it takes. The amount of CPU computational power that it takes to run a service like that. It's probably the highest out of Any other stird [sp?] up that you can run and the fact that you can have a group of stird [sp?] up run that in token... with Microsoft, Yahoo and googles of the world other billions dollars worth of infrastructure I think goes say that it was not him Possible and I think the big thing is just try it jut give it just go a head and try. For [xx] China competition here at in March tough. Comparing [xx] because you've got so many big guys here who might kill you one day. So how's your take on that? Well I think that I would still go in the same thing a lot of people say that lot of people have these know.. I get a lot of students that come up to me in some of these conferences and they say, "I've got this great idea that I have been taking abount last 12 months and I am going to be graduating and what do you think should be doing?" It's almost as if they already know the answer it's, "You should go try to do this start up," but they just want somebody else to tell them you should go to it. That's always the same message. Just go ahead and do it. Just try it.Yeah.I know there's going to be competition, you know, but Yeah. But most important thing is for entrepreneur just do whatever you want to do then keep doing it and I think even if you fail the experience is good and you don't have any regrets versus if you have great idea and you just never tried it because you thought there's going to be too much competition. I think you'll live and regret.Yeah. Since you are here, I assume you can just come back You know, to China quite all the while, more often than before. So, are you going to do anything here?So, I've been back a few times. I haven't been in the integrated and the entrepreneurial business things , all the excitement that's happening, especially in the last couple of years here. I would love to be involved with China in the future.
Will you bring the del.icio.us to China.
If Youtube can't be in China, maybe del.icio.us can be in China.Well, we'll see. Okay. So, thank you so much for joining us and yeah, I'll see you.
