Eric S. Yuan : CEO & Founder of Zoom Video Communications, ‘A Service That Connects People’
In this fast running world where problems require an instant solution, face to face interactions are hard to get. At this time, people require a connection, which they can use, to interact with each other, without covering the actual distances between them. Also, many
Since his college days, Yuan had dreamt about building a communication platform that covered the distances between the people without even travelling. That’s when Zoom’s idea popped up in Yuan’s mind while he was still in his freshman year of college. And, in 2011, he founded Zoom. Zoom is a company that provides remote conferencing services using cloud computing. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States and the software it brings, gives you the advantage of the combined video conferencing, online meetings chats and mobile collaborations.
While in college, Eric’s girlfriend (now wife) lived at a place quite distant from his place. Whenever he wanted to meet her, he used to take excruciating 10-hour train rides. He wished that he could build a solution to this problem through which his girlfriend and he could stay connected, even without being together, physically. He wanted that he could visit her anytime without any travelling.
Eric always said that it was his dream to come to the United States and achieve something big due to his interest, he had grown in the new technology ‘Internet’ that was blooming at that time. At the time, when he applied for the Visa for the US, he got his application rejected a few times. He continuously applied for nine times over the course of 2 years. And after his ninth try, he was finally granted one.
“When I came to America, I did not even speak English, but I knew that I could write codes. I knew I had to work very hard, and so did I. Also, I’m very paranoid so I say to myself, I have to work harder’. Working hard, that is the only thing I know better than my competitor”, says Eric recalling his old days and his mantra of success.
In 1997, Eric came to the Silicon Valley and joined WebEx. WebEx was real time, and it had only a dozen employees. After Yuan’s joining, the company grew very quickly and went public in no time. In 2007, WebEx was sold to Cisco. He was appointed as the Vice President of Cisco and the in-charge of collaborations software.
At Cisco, he did consumer interactions directly with consumers. He found out that many of the consumers were not happy either with Cisco or WebEx. Eric knew that this was the time to do something big that he always dreamt of, something during his college times. He left Cisco and alongside geared up a team of 40 engineers, and came up with ‘Zoom’ in 2011.
After the release, Zoom frew to about a thousand users, and the numbers kept on growing with every update release. As of now, Zoom can process 1000 participants in a single video conferencing call. After being in the market for 5-6 years, it registered more than 20 Billion annualized meeting minutes.
Eric believes that keeping customers happy is something which runs a company. If the customers are not happy, the company will be long gone. Zoom was ranked 18 in the Forbes Cloud 100. Also, Eric was ranked number 1 in the top CEO by Glassdoor based on approval ratings from the employee reviews. Eric got an astonishing 99% approval showing that how he keeps his employees happy too.
He wishes that he could open his company a lot before, but he is still happy with his success. He thrives to do hard work. When asked upon start-ups, he said, “The journey is long and tough, but one must not be afraid to start. One should be vulnerable to taking risks. Also, find investors who want to invest in you, not only in your business”.
Eric S. Yuan, the CEO and Founder of Zoom Video Communications, has a story that motivates and says out loud that hardships are inevitable and without them, no one can reach the success they desire. Eric is an inspiring leader, leading his team to the best to provide the best.
Raghav is a student and a content writer. He loves to write about emerging as well as the existing technologies around and about the ones who bring them to you. Music is the other passion that Raghav processes. It is like the fuel to his body. He is also in writing songs and poems. He believes that life is short, so live the best out of what you have got. Raghav considers himself a sci-fi guy, having stories and tech all around in his head, all the time.