Eric Yuan turned a simple belief into Zoom, the platform that kept the world moving through a once-in-a-century shutdown and redefined modern work.

On this episode of Grit, the Zoom CEO shares why velocity beats size, how a family-first ethos powered his leadership during COVID, and why the coming wave of AI dwarfs the original internet boom.

He details how he’s refreshing Zoom’s culture for 7,500 people, opting for virtual deal calls over in person meetings, settling into life as an empty-nester, and keeping Zoom nimble enough to outpace Big Tech and the next wave of AI startups.

Guest: Eric S. Yuan, Founder & CEO of Zoom

Chapters:

00:00 Trailer

00:44 Introduction

01:47 Walking with swagger

03:48 Extremely exciting moment

10:05 Classic innovators’ dilemma

12:59 Laser-focused bandwidth

17:56 Family first: lead by example

22:09 Everybody was doing their road shows

25:34 The entire world was dependent

28:04 Community care

31:57 Valuation and a co-founder

35:17 A lot of unhappy days

39:25 Building Zoom for consumers

46:57 Holograms?

52:01 Home

53:23 Huge competition, high velocity

1:00:33 Where companies get wrong

1:04:52 Giving back

1:13:12 Who Zoom is hiring

1:13:24 What “grit” means to Eric

1:14:24 Outro

Mentioned in this episode: Webex by Cisco, Glean, Apple, HP, Netscape, Yahoo, Brian Armstrong, Emilie Choi, Coinbase, New Limit, Elon Musk, Windy Hill, Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, Jony Ive, OpenAI ChatGPT, Bill McDermott, ServiceNow, Carl Eschenbach

Links:

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Family, Focus, and 350M Users: Inside Zoom with Eric Yuan

Grit