Eric Yuan’s Capitalization on Covid: Creator of Zoom

    Jennifer Doudna and Emmenuelle Charpentier received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 virtually. They missed out on the annual Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall in Sweden. There, the king of Sweden would have given them their awards personally along with a handshake. But COVID-19 necessitated the switch to an online webconferencer. 

The webconferencer of the pandemic was Zoom. Eric Yuan founded the company in 2011 after he was rejected when pitching it to his former employer, WebEx. He left his role with 40 coworkers to pursue the idea he’d had since his 20s when he was dating his eventual wife who lived 10 hours away, wishing for a way to see her face instantly. Zoom had some big moves early on, including Stanford University as its first official customer and securing partnerships with Slack, Salesforce, and Meta technologies by 2017. But it saw exponential growth during COVID-19, being the 5th most downloaded app in 2020. This landed Yuan in a place of extreme potential. His leadership is what led to Zoom’s success and connected millions of people during lockdowns. He was Time Magazine’s business person of the year. 

Eric Yuan on Zoom 

As Zoom became more popular, it faced security and privacy criticism, including selling data to companies like Meta. This led to millions in settling fees. Yuan had to effectively manage the situation while creatively navigating the press. He released an official blog post reporting on Zoom’s work to resolve issues and the 100+ changes they made to improve security, including hiring third parties to test their software for privacy leaks. This gained him much trust and acclaim from critics. 

When employees started returning to the office, founder and exec Eric Yuan had to get creative. First, they had to stay afloat. They had to let go of 15% of their workforce in 2023, about 1,300 employees. In 2024, it rebranded from “Zoom Video” to “Zoom Communications Inc.,” to shift emphasis from video conferencing to all-around communication and an “AI-first work platform.” Yuan continues to look for new ways to adjust to the current climate and keep his company thriving.