(CNET) — For Stanford University student Feross Aboukhadijeh, what started off as a bet fueled by youthful ambition and technical bravado, ended up an Internet hit and quite possibly a job.
Last week, Aboukhadijeh, 19, was just an ordinary, albeit talented, college student as he tested out Google Instant, the Web giant’s new predictive search results feature. He was immediately impressed on its debut Wednesday but also inspired. To his roommate, he said, “I bet you I can build YouTube Instant in an hour.” And his roommate took him up on the bet.
Aboukhadijeh didn’t quite make the hour deadline, but three hours later, YouTube Instant was born. The site lets people search the enormous YouTube video database in real time.
He spent a couple more hours Thursday sprucing up the user interface. And before going to sleep that night, he posted his work to his Facebook page.
“When I woke up Friday morning there was craziness,” he said.
By “craziness,” Aboukhadijeh means countless e-mails congratulating him, a bevy of interview requests, a server flooded with Web traffic, the creation of a Wikipedia entry in his name, and — perhaps most notably — a job offer from YouTube CEO Chad Hurley via Twitter.
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