Zoom: it is the most downloaded video conferencing app during the pandemic. It went from 20 to 300 million active users per day. It allows to hold meetings from 2 to 500 people. Easy to use, however, it had several security and privacy issues. Its shares were up 300%. The story of its founder is extraordinary.

Zoom was invented by a Chinese in Silicon Valley. The idea of ​​the platform was born out of love. His name is Eric Yuan, he is 50 years old and has a personal fortune of 7.9 billion dollars (Forbes). Its wealth increased by $ 2.58 billion during the pandemic, nearly 4 in three months (Business Insider).

“I first imagined Zoom when I was a freshman in college in China and regularly took a ten hour train ride to visit my fiancée (who is now my wife). I hated those trips and imagined other ways I could see her. And those daydreams eventually became the basis for Zoom, “he said in an interview with the American blog Thrive Global.

The application for the US visa was rejected 9 times

Born in China, the son of an engineer, Eric Yuan moved to Silicon Valley at the age of 27 in 1997, pursuing his dream of working on the internet. «The first time I applied for a US visa, I was rejected. I continued to apply. And in the end I did it: it was the ninth attempt “. Once in Silicon Valley he started working for WebEx, a video conferencing startup. Under his leadership, the company has grown in an incredible way: revenues have gone from 0 to 800 million dollars, employees from 3 to thousands worldwide. Then WebEx was acquired by Cisco and he became vice president of software development. “I talked to customers and I knew they were dissatisfied.”
2011: Zoom is born, in 2019 it goes on the stock exchange

In 2011 he decides that the right time has come to turn those train dreams into reality. Leave Cisco, found Zoom. 40 engineers decide to follow him. In 2019 he brought the company to the stock exchange. After the IPO, he still has 22% of Zoom, which is worth over $ 9 billion.

Eric Yuan has been named one of the most powerful people in the world of technology by Business Insider. Inventor (has filed 11 patents), football fan, speaks very little English. To young people who want to start up, he always says: “Don’t look for someone who gives you money, look for someone who believes in you”.