Steve Chen’s Golf Swing and Other New Projects

By Jun. 30, 2009, 2:00pm PT 2 Comments

As we’ve known for quite a while now, Steve Chen has moved on from running YouTube’s technology. MediaMemo today got this quote from YouTube PR: “Steve shifted his focus to help with some Google engineering projects. He’s still involved with YouTube and invested in its success.” Chen has not held the CTO title since last fall, but YouTube has not named a replacement for that specific role.

Chen, the YouTube co-founder and CTO of the site until well after it got bought, deserves credit for his emphasis on accessibility — something that made YouTube stand out from its video portal peers as it rapidly grew. He spoke about his philosophy of prioritizing widespread access before addressing quality at our NewTeeVee conference a couple years ago (live blog, writeup and video).

So what is Chen really up to? We do know from his YouTube account, where he signs in every now and again, that he’s learning to play golf! (See video above.)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.