Eric Yuan got into collaboration technology for personal reasons. When he was dating his now-wife in his native China, he would take 10-hour train rides from college to see her. The trains were packed with people to such an extent that he could sleep standing up, and he would be held up by fellow passengers who were squeezed against him. This miserable experience made Yuan wish there were a way to replicate the experience of being with her without the need for such a miserable travel experience.
He joined WebEx as one of its earliest engineers in 1997, and would stay with the company through its acquisition by Cisco in 2007. He had helped grow the team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide, and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800 million.
Frustrated by the constraints of a large company, Yuan left Cisco in mid-2011. He founded Zoom soon thereafter. His vision for the collaboration startup would also be sparked by a personal note. Perhaps because Zoom’s mission — to make video communications “frictionless” — has always been personal to Yuan, he has lived the company’s message since day one.
Yuan, for example, never missed his three children’s sporting events, often using Zoom to take calls from the gym. He promised his wife that Zoom’s technology was so good he would only have to travel twice per year.
“I have kept that promise,” he told Forbes in 2017. “I hope that with video conferencing like Zoom everyone can spend time with family. I feel proud of what I am doing.” Still today, Yuan takes the vast majority of his meetings remotely via Zoom.
On April 18, Zoom had its initial public offering (IPO). Shares began the day at $36 and closed at $62 — a leap of 72% — giving the video conferencing software company a market cap of almost $17 billion.–
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