Zoom allowed people to stay social despite intense social distancing measures. Against the emerging threat of the global pandemic, came the unstoppable rise of Zoom videoconferencing service from 10 million users in December 2019 to 300 million users in April 2020. Before the lockdowns happening worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom was mainly used by companies for meetings, conferences and anything business related. Nowadays, after the rise of the social distancing culture to stay safe from COVID-19 , people started using Zoom for a wide range of connectivity purposes including keeping up with family and friends, family or class reunions, hosting events, conducting musical performances, parties, weekend club meetings and photoshop classes.

Behind the new norm in social interaction is Eric Yuan, a 49-year old Chinese-American billionaire entrepreneur, the CEO and Founder of the $35 billion Zoom Video Communications. As the world economy braced for the worst because of COVID-19, Eric’s net worth jumped 112% to $7.57 billion in the past few months since lockdowns were imposed everywhere across the world. Zoom suddenly became the second most installed app in the Overall downloads nongame apps category, emerged on top in the Apple Store Downloads, and came third in the Google Play Downloads. Its growth increased 43 times since 2019, and reached a total of 94.6 million installs. diminished sources of income amid the crippling effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Eric Yuan started making billions. He has made nearly $4 billion in 3 months as usage of his video conferencing solution continues to hit the roof. Eric was born in Shandong Province, China by his parents who are mining engineers. He has an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics and completed a master’s degree in engineering. He worked for four years in Japan and later on at an internet startup in Silicon Valley, California where he navigated towards a career in teleconferencing. Before creating Zoom, Eric was a vice president at Cisco Systems telecommunications equipment company. He was also involved with WebEx, another videoconferencing company under Cisco.

” I wanted to join a company where I woke up every morning and felt happy: I wanted to build a better solution to deliver happiness to the WebEx customers, that’s it.We have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform ”

The concept of Zoom was developed while Eric at one time tried to conduct a longdistance communication with his long-distance girlfriend. Eric told Forbes in 2017, “I was only able to see her twice a year and it took more than 10 hours to get there by train. I was young then, 18 or 19 years old, and I thought it would be fantastic if in the future there was a device where I could just click a button and see her and talk to her.” The need to connect with his girlfriend on a regular basis urged Eric to integrate video with a telephone-based conferencing system. He developed Zoom with userfriendly and unique features which sets users against different types of virtual backgrounds.

Eric initially developed a smartphonefriendly video conferencing system for Cisco in 2011, which was eventually rejected. When he left Cisco, he developed Zoom. In the early days, Eric struggled to acquire investment support to launch Zoom, and even went to the extent of borrowing money from friends and family. He passionately worked and involved himself in every aspect of Zoom—from customer service to emailing customers. Eric told CNN, “I wanted to join a company where I woke up every morning and felt happy: I wanted to build a better solution to deliver happiness to the WebEx customers, that’s it.” In April 2019, Zoom made its initial public offering—and share price immediately escalated to 72% on its first day of trading, thus making it one of the most successful IPOs of the year—and Eric a billionaire. Zoom’s largest customers come from diverse industries across the globe including Wells Fargo (WFC), VMware (VMW), Samsung, Uber, ServiceNow (NOW), Capital One, Splunk (SPLK) and Walmart.

“We have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform.”, Eric explained to CNN. The plans offered by Zoom have limits on the number of people that can participate in a video conference. Thus, as more individuals participate in a conference, the more a customer will pay for a plan. Despite his enormous success, Eric remains down-to-earth and well-loved by his employees, as attested by “a 99% approval rating from employees on workplace review site Glassdoor”, which likewise named Yuan its Big Company CEO of the Year in 2018 according to CNBC. According to CNBC, Eric is also a committed father, and finds time to hang out with his wife and their three children. He is also very much involved in the basketball career of his oldest son, and he even attends his games and practices. While Yuan says his newfound wealth doesn’t particularly excite him, he is eager to see what he hopes will be a permanent change in the way we work. For him it’s all about bringing value to society, the community, and to the world and to make it sustainable. His fulfillment doesn’t come from the billions he makes, but rather from the customers which he satisfies. Eric said “I care about these people and their experience with Zoom, so it feels very
natural to me to want to jump in and see if I can help.”

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