Silicon Valley has a lot of noise, a lot of hype. People are very excited about all of the Facebook stuff, Facebook applications. It’s just been a huge hype over the last year when actually … there isn’t really that much value. It’s just a bubble. It’s almost a distraction.

Couldn’t be truer… Facebook’s grown quite a bit in the last year, but I’d argue it’s done that despite the Apps, not because of them.  Anyway, Karim is looking for startups both in the Valley and his high school stomping grounds, the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  It’s a good thing he didn’t limit himself to his college alma mater, Stanford, lord knows they get enough financier interest.  Karim left YouTube early on to return to Stanford.  I’m sure he sleeps well at night: he was also a member of Paypal, which sold for $1.65B (where he met other YouTube founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley).