The name Yuan means "to go on a journey" in Chinese. There is no doubt that the life of the famous software developer is also a journey. Because the experienced businessman discovered the Zoom application, which he described as the initiative of his life, on a train journey.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the yuan's fortune exceeds $17 billion. But who exactly is Eric Yuan?
Eric Yuan's childhood
Eric Yuan was born in Shandong province of China to a family of geological engineers. The future billionaire, who made construction scraps to support his family during his primary school years, experienced many jobs until his university years.
Eric S. Yuan (born 20 February 1970) is a Chinese-American billionaire businessman, engineer, and the chief executive officer and founder of Zoom Video Communications, of which he owns 22%.
Yuan, who studied at university in the city where he was born and grew up in 1987, took a 10-hour train journey to visit his girlfriend. One idea that popped into his mind at an early age was whether there would be a way to “reach out more easily” to his girlfriend. Eric had this idea in mind for years. He dreamed of developing a phone software capable of video calling in the future. Still in those years, “Who is Eric Yuan?” Although the question of the young man did not make any sense, who the young man would be in the future began to reveal himself from his innovative ideas.
US visa denied nine times
After completing his master's degree, Eric Yuan settled in Beijing and attended a training program in Japan. During these years, the young man attended the conference. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was on the stage as the speaker. That day, Eric chose his role model in life and rolled up his sleeves to go to Silicon Valley. But the United States has denied visa applications nine times. However, this did not put Yuan back from his dreams. His tenth application was accepted.
Eric Yuan, who moved to Silicon Valley in 1997, started working as a software engineer at a company that develops web conferences called WebEx with limited English. Ten years later, he became the firm's Vice President of Engineering. In 2007, the company was sold by Cisco Systems for $3.2 billion. Eric's position remained stable as hundreds of staff were laid off.
Having built a strong career at WebEx for 14 years, the software developer now wanted to show everyone "Who is Eric Yuan". For this, he offered the company to design its products from scratch. But bosses said they were not ready for such a radical transformation. Yuan had that idea in mind years ago, when he took a 10-hour train ride to see his girlfriend.
In the summer of 2011, Eric Yuan resigned from the company. He started working on a platform to rival WebEx. But the application in question was not Zoom yet. With software called SaaSbee, Yuan got his first idea in motion. But it wasn't very successful. Having collected an investment of 3 million dollars, the entrepreneur had to make one more minor change in order to achieve his dreams.
Zoom's rising success
When the dates showed 2012, SaaSbee's name was changed to Zoom Video Communications, Inc. In August, the first version of the application was released. The application was reviewed by many journalists and received full marks. Yuan's dream on the train came true and the company was on the rise. After successive successes, Eric invited 45 engineers from WebEx to Zoom and grew his team.
Having collected a total of $146 million from six separate funds, Zoom reached 100 employees in 2015. In 2016, the monthly video call time exceeded 500 million minutes. In 2019, these figures saw 5 billion minutes. But the real success of the company was yet to come.
Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Zoom
With the coronavirus epidemic that started at the end of 2019, there was a movement in Zoom. The pandemic, which has now spread all over the world in 2020, has caused millions of people to switch to online work and education. Meanwhile, people started using Zoom, and the company's market cap in October 2020 exceeded $140 billion.
At the end of November, shares fell 15%. However, it still raised $2 billion when it went public with the platform stocks in 2021. Zoom, now a publicly traded company, has added a total of $16.4 billion to its founder Yuan's fortune so far. Thus, “Who is Eric Yuan?” The question has now become one of the most popular searches on the internet.
Who is Eric Yuan with his private life?
Zoom's founder Eric Yuan was visiting his girlfriend Sherry on the 10-hour train ride where the platform planted its first seeds. At the age of 22, the couple got married while they were still students. The couple had three children from this relationship, which still continues today.
The famous entrepreneur, who was named Business Person of the Year by Time Magazine in 2020, entered the list of the 100 most influential people of all time. He has been living in California as a US citizen since 2007.