Why YouTube rise from startup to juggernaut should get more respect [Video]

But, in 2006, when Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, it was the early days of the online video boom. The staying power of the platform, which was founded just a year before the transaction, was still up in the air.

Eighteen years later, investors in Google-parent Alphabet are now faced with a different, strangely positive kind of uncertainty. Could this sometimes overlooked business be worth as much as Netflix at nearly $400 billion? And now, where does it go from here?