Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom

foreign it is an honor to have you here today welcome back to the GSB thank you I'm very very excited to be back every time so now I'd like to start off by thanking you for not only helping to keep the world connected during the pandemic but for creating a product that brought all of us a lot of joy and laughs too everything from Zoom weddings to zoom attire I'm thinking professional tops in pajama bottoms and everything in between so thank you that's why I like Stanford like GSP because I know Stanford GSP never use any other product that is a true statement now few Founders can say that their companies have turned into a global verb take us back to the very beginning how did you first come up with the idea for zoom back to 20 2010 time frame you know I was at Cisco I was cooperative vice president over there and when I came to America in 1997 I joined WebEx as one for the first little several funding Engineers I worked extremely hard you know try to make a WebEx better and fortunately and after the 10 or 11 years hard work back to 2010 time frame every time I can tell you why talking to the customer I did not see a single heavy customer every morning I woke up I did not want to go to office because when you talk to the customer care customer every time share their pain point the mission of the video quality is not a very good mobile experience horrible I really wanted to fix that problem unfortunately and you know they told me that that's not a good idea you still can sell a lot of airbags why do you want to cannibalize WebEx and it took me one year I failed to convince others I guess I should have come to GSP learning how to convince others so I guess I did not you know take that course I failed to convince others so but anyway so finally I decided to leave to build my own solution and a key part in your story you mentioned coming to the United States in the late 1990s that path to get to the U.S wasn't necessarily smooth was it what kind of challenges did you run into coming to Silicon Valley uh gee actually that's a long time ago I thought it was pretty straightforward I was a very good engineer I should get a visa and fortunately and had took me a nance attempts like to get here my Visa application got rejected 80 times and but luckily I go to the the final that we saw and came here but looking back I really appreciate it because the reason why his mother got to practice my perseverance right so and again took me one and a half years to come to America to pursue my American dream so and keeping on the international Fame I don't know if you know but we have quite a few of our classmates in the audience who are Internationals and are living in the U.S for the first time what were some of those first years like in the U.S as someone who had never lived in Silicon Valley or the United States before that's a good question I was I would received back to 1997 and I remember before I came here I was extremely excited right because when I have a kid you know always uh read the stories of HP and the Silicon Valley Apple very excited however after you landed he didn't realize it's not that easy because you have learned the culture history how to you know uh you know make new friends and build a trust language barrier all kinds of things and luckily I live in Silicon Valley you know Silicon Valley not only the worldwide Innovation Center but also here the people here is extremely friendly a lot of leaders you know they would like to help you I think after several months I feel like already part of the sitting Valley and looking back I was wow this is the best experience yeah and I love your optimism you came from you know China to the United States not speaking English applied for a Visa nine times rose up in WebEx and Cisco and then you came to the Stanford Graduate School of Business what role did being at the GSB play and that Vision to turn an idea you had back in 1987 into a company that is now that's a security questions anytime if I have a time I take a break I want to be you know part of GSB you know group I wanted to see to hear like you guys I think very excited the reason why I said so is you know back to you know early early time I came here you know before I came here I was very confident I said wow you know America huge opportunity right as long as you work hard you can achieve your dream and however I offered you know I work for WebEx for a while you know quite often I work very very hard right and make a very good progress however you know sometimes your confidence level suddenly not a very high was as high as the first time first day when you landed here and because it makes some progress you do not want to take a risk you know you do not want to start over right and back to 2006 and I I participated you know the Stanford and the tsp SCP program I can tell you actually just literally after the summer the day after I left the Stanford I felt like more like the first day when I landed the San Francisco Airport my confidence level was extremely high I almost created a job and to start a new company at that time and but anyway so you know being here just one summer my confidence level is at least twice High you know for all the GSB students you're here 21 or two years I guarantee you I guarantee you your confidence level probably four times or four times five if you are not I can tell your background program SCP program also pretty good too but anyway I was so grateful to stand for GSB in a greater curriculum right greater you know a lot of kids stories and greater professors you know and yeah I just by the way after that every time you know to manage the company manager team is pretty challenging and sometimes you know you feel like a very lonely a long time every time I feel like that if I come back to GSB and to stand up campus I can tell you I sort of fully recharge myself that's another reason why I'm here today I need to fully recharge myself so it's definitely a special place I agree with you very special and also with in order to mention entrepreneurial atmosphere here in GSP I think a great opportunity I think for all of you after you graduate yeah well fast forward that company that you had the idea for way back when you were inspired at the GSB that company has fundamentally changed the way that we all stay connected that's what DSP you know taught us right to build something to change the world absolutely but Zoom is seen as something that was an overnight success but that wasn't the case was it yeah it's two causes many marriages effort I think prior to covet I probably most of the you know people never heard about Zoo right but we were very patient you know as long as we keep improving the product experience to make sure our customers happy I know sooner or later we are going to achieve something yeah and so it sounds like a lot of hard work went into it and part of that hard work was finding investors for Zoom it's hard to Fathom but back then investors weren't jumping at the bit to invest in Zoom what lessons do you have from that period of time that you can share with the entrepreneurs and the aspiring entrepreneurs in the audience today it's good a new VC here so I can share the story so and after I left the Cisco I thought I was a vice president of engineering I built WebEx I have also a lot of connections it should be straightforward right target visits they all want to invest you that's my that's my thought but I was completely wrong and I try to talk almost every VC I knew nobody wanted to invest me and plus some other VC friend told me that Eric as long as you build something else our check was ready for you so meaning you should not build another video collaboration solution and I remember that I talked when we see and you know again you know the way submission that's horrible idea you should not do that but on the way back and I told myself you are wrong I got to prove you are wrong so after that back to the office I changed my you know the screensaver you know to be you are wrong so and I removed that after we became a nasda public company so so menu actually when you try to reach the capital right you know for sure we are humble right there's a reason why we see that you know invest you right you got it to and understand why it's good for you right but sometimes and this is might be wrong if you think you're right which is a wrong it's not a balancing right give you more reasons you've got to work harder to prove they are wrong that's what had happened to us yeah I think that's an incredibly important lesson that I know a lot of us starting companies will will keep in mind don't give up yeah yeah absolutely and often we seem not be right so especially for those visits you never got got educated here utsb right so and I think another important lesson in that story is learning to Pivot as you mentioned Zoom was a successful company before the pandemic serving mainly B2B clients and then boom the pandemic happens and you have to add b2c into that portfolio what were some of the big lessons that came away and how did you rapidly adjust to such a significant expansion in your customer base yeah I think that's a as a tough experience because you know so right Zoom was built to serve for Enterprise consumer prior to pandemic crisis and during the Panama crisis you know and we had so many you know the new users consumers all kinds of new use cases like K-12 schools or Tyler Madison Teddy Hills you know we never thought about those consumer use cases and the mistake we made is you know prior to you know Clover the crisis we had a lot of secure features but normally we work together with the Enterprise ITT you know they are going to test our product with some QC process they are going to enable some secure features or privacy features and however for those you know first time consumers experience very different they do not have ITT right then we realize we made a huge mistake not only did we put a lot of offering the service but also we should put a role of serving the IIT for them and so I will learn a hard lesson we quickly took actions and we we went to trust back because you know when you sort of lost your trust you got to make sure take actions as quickly as possible and also keep everything open and transparent why you made a mistake what's your you know what's your you know the effort right how to you know how to fix all those problems keep everything open transparent communicate with the customers you know that's a lesson learned and finally finally we want the trust back absolutely and I want to pick up on a word you said which is mistake something that I admire so much about you is a leader is your honesty and transparency like you were talking about and for example when you know data and security issues were brought up during the pandemic your response was to publicly roll out a statement of how we're fixing it here are the problems that we see and this is how we're going to take feedback into account you touch on this a little bit but would love to dive in a bit more how do you see transparency being important in leadership and how can we as Future Leaders and leaders in the business World think about being transparent in difficult situations I think first of all during the difficult institution you go to this group six step take a step back right try to understand what had happened right those in the users you know why you know share with you all those issues because I think they care about us ultimately you know for for us if we can address all those problems who is going to benefit the zoom right ourselves that's why we embrace you know all those you know uh challenges right and at the same time we go to and take actions right you know you know first of all I needed to tell you know publicly tell them sorry I mess up you know we got to do fix you know for all the issues we know what's the problem what's your cause what's the past and the solution to address all those issues right and I personally hosted it weekly in a security in a meetings and with all the you know and the users and also share with them transparently about those effort plans programs how we double down on security and privacy a lot of things like you know end users they're pretty smart they understand you know are you going to try hard to fix those issues or you just need to talk about that right so that's that's in the world we what if we did you know you know two years ago at the zoom and you know prior to you know coveted crisis you know look at our privacy security very small around a dozen people and now we have more than 200 full-time employees right and because of that and we we took privacy and executed very very seriously because a lot of secure companies they deploy Zoom garment customers so you zoom and finally the customers really like it zoom and saying yeah you guys you know admitted those mistakes and then quickly fix that problem and also make it better even better than any of our competitors in terms of security and privacy because you and a lot of people relying on you can I get a show of hands how many people use zoom during the pandemic I think I know the answer but thank you I use it too yeah there we go John Dean Levin mentioned this stat before but I want to bring it out again because I think it's incredible the number of Zoom users increased from 10 million to 300 million sorry that's amazing participant being participants yes meeting participants per day in just four months I mean Zoom was really pushed into the spotlight and also given a chance to shine walk us through your thought process when did you realize that Zoom could play a critical role during the pandemic I think of course I and you know I remember I think the first time in my daughter like her you know school and they also included school every online I remember it's a Monday morning the first time you know my you know I worked so hard you know and my my daughter even though I don't know what I was doing but you know and she asked me the first time her dad how to raise my hand during the zoom call I realized wow you know I never thought about my kids they are going to use zoom and I think the first time I think I realized wow this is a huge potential and I didn't realize in you know and there's a huge opportunity at that time how to and help the world how to help the community in the society right this is you know the responsibility on our Shooters right the good news we we heavily invested in our company culture the team working worked extremely hard I can tell you I personally had a way more you know syllabus nice than any time in my career and along with a lot of Engineers because we need a capacity India Brazil a lot of other countries quite often maybe maybe there's a small glitches you've got to fix quickly I can tell you wow that's a six months time frame and the good news you know was over so it's it's pretty tough very challenging yeah I can't even imagine I have to ask hearing about the responsibility hearing about all the things you were thinking about the sleepless nights how do you stay grounded and how do you prioritize what really matters that's why I like a GSP you know I learn a lot of stuff I was already mentally prepared well right because on the one hand if you really want Beauty something to make the water better to change the world for sure you are going to face all kinds of challenges right mentally you got to prepare well meaning may not be today maybe next year maybe next week right so mentally we were at least I was prepared very well so when that happens I realize on the one hand you are facing the challenge on the other hand you re you also I realize if you can overcome all those challenges right guess what you know your company your team yourself will become a very different become much better right that's why we lever that opportunity look at every corners of our business what we can do differently to improve I think you know our you know team size for example prior to code we're going to have a little bit over 2 000 employees you know for now actually we hired over six thousand voice over the past 18 months right and to make sure further skills are very that's a great opportunity for us for the future and to position us very well to transform our business from being a video conferencing killer app company to be a platform business that's a huge opportunity and the opportunities that Zoom has even in the future are huge I want to come to a question first though that is something that we talk a lot about here at the GSB which is work-life balance I've heard that you are in addition to running one of the biggest companies also an active parent on your children's basketball teams how do you balance and how do you think about that work-life balance between spending time on your company while also spending time with your family yeah that that's one thing I guess during my time in GSB I did not learn how to balance that because you know and the reason why and at that time I also thought of a balance and I talked with many other classmates and some professors try to try to you know figure out a way how to balance later on realized as long as you think about balance there's no answer you know think about if you like work and you know it's uh it's part of life you know you're passionate about something and especially you are good at something and you also can create a value and if you like that you know that's a part of a life you know work is life life is work don't listen about balance that's what two is what if there's a conflict between work and life you know at a zoom and our principle is very simple whenever there's a conflict being worked alive your family first always like that you know taking my personal experience for example many years ago and I think that's our Christmas party and my son's in high school they also you know they are going to have a basketball game and in San Francisco I told our team sorry that's a conflict I'm going to enjoy my son's basketball game I'm going to I'll be I I would be very late to the Christmas party right that's our philosophy doing something about balance find your passion you know work is alive life is a work at the same time if there's a conflict family first that's you know very simple but doing a single balance every single balance every day you are going to struggle every month is you're gonna struggle yeah in addition to putting Family First it sounds like happiness is something that is so important to you how do you take that personal value of happiness and then translate into a company culture that's also based on happiness yeah so company culture is extremely important looking back I think that's uh that's one thing I I personally you know feel proud of because on the first of the day when I started Zoom I remember when we did the two things I usually done company culture and value and it was about to use the furniture right to to for a table so but anyway so our comedy culture just two words very easy right very catchy deliver happiness and the meaning and for me as a CEO of a company my number and priority is to make sure Zoom employee happy I believe if you have a hyper employees you're going to have hybrid customers right so I do all I can to think about how to make make sure Zoom employee happy and at the same time you know employee you know they are going to make a customer happy you know that's our company the culture yeah wow and it sounds like as CEO you have a lot of people to keep happy your customers your employers you know shareholders what happens when one of these stakeholder groups isn't happy how do you keep them on board so first of all we sort of tell them why what's the purpose of you know life right the purpose of life is really about the happiness right and also the sustainable happiness comes from making others happy right you know for those you know shareholders right like a stock of prices down you know they are not happy we tell them hey this is more short-term thing right and plus and we should you know communicate you know learn Community with them you know very well about you know why you know let's say you want to buy the Zuma stock why you become a share you know the city holder right and ultimately we want to make sure you know those you know the employees or shareholders and it truly understand our company information right in the canola when we look at the short-term stuff right and if we do not understand the purpose of life it's just know focus on the short-term happenings right for sure you know that's not an hour you know our company the culture we always think about what you can do differently to focus on long-term sustainable happiness right rather than just a short-term happiness you know like sometimes employee you just focus on the money or the power and or the title those are the short-term happiness in the longer term right you got to look at make sure make sure the the happiness is sustainable always think about in the long run make a customer happy making employee happy and it's down the road you know I think you will get a much better return yeah and keeping on that happiness thing because I think it's it's so unique to who you are as a person something else that we think a lot about here at the GSB is what kind of leader we want to become we have a class where we ask ourselves why would someone follow us given your background being an immigrant to the U.S being an engineer overcoming adversity putting happiness at the center of everything how would you describe your leadership style and how has that evolved over the years I think of my leadership style for sure again and I I was very fortunate to live in Senegal Valley and I've you know doing my career here I had so many mentors you know truly helped me they were shipped my leadership style and I think many years ago I would say my leadership style is more like a very Hands-On leader right and I tried to work so hard trying to understand you know again this is kind of sure to come to jsb First otherwise I'm not going to spend so much time to learn like a you know Marketing sales and support and the strategy and you know and I learned a lot and because I really understand how business operates right and it's one of very Hands-On leadership that's kind of my you know uh personal style but later on I realized that's not a skillable right you know how to delegate you know some of the very important Works to your team how to make sure you are surrounded by a lot of leaders probably they are even better than you you know on some us I think I learned a lot otherwise especially over the past two years and I do not think I can sleep right and given so many challenges so many opportunities right that's my leadership style I think I think completely changed like how to balance between the Hands-On leadership and also the delegates so it sounds like as Zoom scaled you had to adapt your leadership style to fit that so it could scale with that otherwise there's no way to scale you know up your business yeah exactly we talked about Zoom pre-pandemic we talked about Zoom during the pandemic let's look to the Future and five years from now what is zoom going to look like and what are you excited for five years later Zoom will be for sure five years better so and so up for years but anyway I think from our perspective we truly believe and in the future from a technology perspective Zoom even can deliver uh can deliver a much better experience than face-to-face meeting you know you and I can you can sit at home I can sit anywhere let's see local Starbucks coffee shake your hands you feel my hand is shaking I give a hug you feel my intimacy and even if we speak a different language we can understand each other and you get a cup of coffee I can enjoy the smell remotely all those technologies will to be part of our offering in the future at the same time we would like to transform our business to be a platform Company You Know video voice you know team chat conference and rumor systems events webinar and also all other collaboration Solutions essentially in the user they can live within the zoom platform can get most of the work done rather than always switching back and forth to other you know the applications the switching costs is very high right essentially Zoom more like a working hybrid work operating system that's why we are very very excited yeah I'm excited for that too if any of you like that Vision feel free to join us so you kept the world connected during a global pandemic and brought happiness to Millions 10 20 even 50 years from now what do you want people to remember about you and about Zoom it's great questions I think one thing I really want you know zoom and myself to be remembered is that you know we somewhere write a book they would say during the you know 2020 Covenant 19 crisis there's a company called Zoom truly have the word truly enabled Global Connections you know that's why that's what I want the world to remember myself and also the the zoom also all the Zoomies and you know that that's pretty much but again you know and we just you know started our chapter two you know and we are embarking on a zoom 2. Journey as a more

exciting stuff you know download yeah wow wow principled and purposeful leadership you must be a GSB Alum yep yeah so a final question before you before we move into audience Q and A this is a question We'll be asking each of our speakers as they come throughout the year and the question is principled leadership is Paramount at the Stanford GSB what do you view as your role in leading with responsibility to not only your company but to Society at large yes screw the question so one thing I like Cisco and what was their The Cisco Pharmacy chairman John Chambers he's such a greater leader I learned one thing from him will you look at you know as a leader right when you look at the business and the organization work for don't always think about you know your organization all with the Singapore your organization's social responsibility what it can do to help the the community and Society right that's what I learned that's why when it comes to zoom's Value you know our company value just one word care to care about the community customer company team is and as well as ourselves to care about the community that's extremely important make sure your business your organization is part of a society you think about how you can play play differently right not only think about a day-to-day work but also play a big role make sure you can contribute back to the community to the society spoken is a true GSB alum thank you we're now going to have a positive test right to be a very qualified csplr 100 thank you passed with flying colors thank you we're now going to move into audience Q and A I still remember that particular day October 27 2020 when I was in China having a zoom interview with Harvard Business School and right in the middle of the interview uh you know the severe connection issue or censorship that might have captured my Twisted sense for a few more whatever it was forcibly shut me out of the meeting and never allow me to log back in and a month later I received a rejection letter from Harvard Business School which supported me to apply for the Even Better Business School Stanford GSP where I proudly find myself at this moment and I really appreciate Zoom for having changed my path in a very moving forward laughs [Applause] anyway so we're gonna list of the countless efforts made by a zoom to improve the security and transparencies I think there are still not a few people who have concerns over you know zoom's association with Chinese government and in fact some organizations including the Taiwanese government Japanese government and some private company in the US still ban the official use of two and in my view that Zoom has been particularly susceptible to this kind of a China related speculations um you know because of your personal background and the fact that a zoom was actually complicit in China's censorship and repression in 2020. so my question is how would you go about reconciling your personal identity as a former Chinese National holding American passport what's the need for navigating a multinational tech company like zoom in such a complex and uh you know sensitive business environment shipped by the U.S China relationship days yeah great question first of all I think that's one of the best use cases right experience about the zoom so how lucky you are you are part of a gsv you know so and I think it boils down to one scene right how to build a trust right this is very important you know all those issues you just described boys from advancing you know because you know the other side you know see the customers who never use a zoom or be some other government they do not know who we are right how do establish their trust right that's right at the zoom the speed of a trust is our favorite book right you know the problem you mentioned yeah I was born in China right they you know the pandemic crisis you know came you know a lot of users you know you can't zoom for some Mission Control application they do not know who I am right and you know I'm uh you know American citizen right they do not know that they say oh Zoom is so maybe it's a you know kind of a register in other countries that's not the case right all those issues guess what we did not do a good job we should proactively communicate with the world who is a zoo you know what kind of uh you know the the company and the zoom is and also what's our company the culture and the value animation all these kind of things we lever that opportunity right to communicate communicate with where were you may not understand our business we don't understand you know our team may not know me right to level that opportunity to build a trust that's why today you look at it you know like a president zelinski right he's using Zoom right and also a lot of garment that you know also you Zuma as well right but so many security companies as well ultimately that's a way for you to to always take a step back to understand what had happened I didn't understand that problem the root of course and if it's a greater solution you know I think that's why you know today you know we are doing pretty well so on that front I just want to maybe ask you how you share you actually your secret like to be such a big success as a minority of the Asian and with today we also have a lot of international students Asian students here do you want to like share how to make like such a big impact as a minority in United States and please share some advice and experience Hudson's great question first of all I think again you know sitting around in America right in a culture wise is you know where I would say it's uh you know open-minded right so meaning as long as you know you work hard and contribute right and you know I think they will embrace you right the community and also the the business industry and I think that's a huge opportunity right I think the only thing about you know you know your background that much just think about what you can do right to contribute back to the community to society right if you can you know and show the world you know you can create a lot of value here UB is very successful quite a quite often the reason why in order to successful because you know don't think about you know from others perspective always simple what you can do differently every day you become better wearing of yourself you communicate better and also you make the world better and it's then actually you'll be recognized very well your business also will be successful ultimately I think the the the the common mistake is is because you do not get a better your business will not get better and you think about oh maybe actually you're a minority and also you you know kind of there are some you know discrimination I think that's not a root cause right root of course always focus on yourself focus on your business and create more value to the society that's okay my name is jawwin Tang I am a second year here my question is about the role mentorship has played in your life and your career development can you tell us who your most influential Mentor was and how they shaped your life wow and we do not have a lot of time otherwise I can share a lot of our mentors so and I think one of the I think you know let's you know let me take a step back right one of the leaders I truly think Infamous me most in terms of leadership style is a former CEO of Walmart it's this God right when he talked about leadership and Cisco offside huge influence I image with a Blog you know and I also had a poster you know on on the wall in my office and I think he is for sure is the best in terms of uh influence to my leadership style and also over the past several years right you know you know quite often right you know I see some problems and why why I was facing challenges like I can call a lot of sales I mean like a you know like a salesforcee or Mark and Oracle civil Larry and hpu seal Enrique and also redalio and it starts a great dealer he and his team stopped by Yama office you know to talk with our leadership team it will help us a lot and also yeah quite often I can call Manny you know CEOs right and to help me also have our business that's what not the reason why you know the ceiling while you know has a great culture a lot of leaders they want to help you out actually you go to proactively retort them I'm pretty sure a lot of leaders even if they do not know you they want to have your art right because it's hard to give back this is part of a sitting Valley culture my name is Alex I'm an MBA too um so at the beginning of the pandemic there are obviously a lot of video chatting uh Services out there you know Google Plus and Skype and of course zoom and why was it Zoom the one that you know triumphed in the end great question I think the founders GSB alumni that's a reason because yeah that's that's the root of calls that's the reason so but anyway I think you know to build a better solution you got to spend more time with your customers you know ultimately what's the Innovation Innovation really about you want to be the first of the company to understand customer pain point and also take actions quickly and to be the first winner to build a solution if you keep doing that sooner or later you are going to win so that's our that's our approach that's the reason other you know competitors I think they lost yeah my name is uchenzo and I'm a first year MBA student here my question is what was the most frustrating moment in your professional career and uh how did you overcome the difficulties and what did you learn from it oh that's great question so I think again as as too many frustration moments in my career and you know and very often and but however as a number one number one thing you got to calm down that's very very important because to be a CEO the most important things you want to make a better decision right if you do not calm down and if you're very frustrated very likely you're gonna make a wrong decision that's very important you got to make sure take a step back calm down make sure you always try to make a better decision that's that's number one thing number two things you know at the zoom we also and have a formula the problem root cause solution frustration will not help you anything right you've got to do every time you see the problem and the huge problem right you probably feel frustrated you're going to take step back just to focus on problem root cause and a solution another thing about if you can have a better solution guess what you are going to be become better company and you every time you think wow because there's a problem Zoom will get a better tomorrow I'm going to become better leader tomorrow then you should be happier right why you feel frustrated and that's you know my principle yeah you talked about the importance of patients as you were building zoom and that it took time but now that you're a real estate company there's also share price pressures there's pressures of quarterly results so how do you balance the short-term share price responsibility that you have versus the long-term customer pain Point View that's a great question I think the one yeah this is another Mentor I my mentor also you and learn a lot from him as well the company called Nvidia right and by the founder and cogs and also the Stanford anomaly as well see all the student allowment accomplishment very well so look at you look at the media the company history I remember there's a Time 10 years in a row the stock price was flat look at it today number one semicondaga company because you make sure as a leader right always focus on a long term ago right do not focus on short term and also regard to educated team communicate with its team the mission of the company is extremely important you want to recruit retain those employees who share the same Mission and then you can focus on a long time ago rather than just a short on the goal right I also I learned a harder lesson you know over the past several years I can tell you our engineering team very stable I did not lose a single top of talents but we do we do lose a lot of sales people because they may not understand the company Mission right that's why I say you know folk song and recruiting those uh talents who can share the same Mission focus on long term and media is such a great example so oh sorry I was on mute um [Applause] that's the best feature for a zoo um so Eric my name is shantam I'm a MBA one as well my question to you is you know Zoom really transformed within the first three to six months I went from talking to my grandfather's forehead to actually hosting thousands of people on it and you said customer was in the center of your development but you also had so many different types of customers customers wanting sophistication of the product and others wanting more basic needs so how do you optimize for the product development phase and the growth phase and the communication phase of of your product um yeah it's a screw the question so as time goes on right so the the founders sealed the law you have to you know change you know dynamically right so for the first and several years I was heads down to product aside for the first four four and a half a year five years and after that I probably shift most of my priority of work to go to market in a sales and marketing but later on I realized that's not a skillable we have to take the turn right and sort of a company the focused support from product Focus to go to market folks and then back to the product Focus you know I needed to you know shift the model you know to focus on the product that's what had happened over the past six or nine months right you have to make sure from the top right from a civil perspective I always look at the product side otherwise very soon like your product may not be best right so that's why I dedicate a lot of other good Market you know the responsibility the tasks to other leaders and spend most of time on the product side and a lot of key features and Designs you know sometimes in the features you think very very good for enterprise customers may not work for consumers and vice versa right how to balance that make sure you know you always simplify the product experience and also make sure every product no managers Engineers they truly understand why you added this feature not you know when you build the the product it's very easy to add so many features but guess what it's not very easy to use anymore it's so gravity right so how to balance that you know the in the ease of use and the feature set interest customers and also consumers right the case make sure you know you got into a focus part of that you know starting from the CEO and the founder and all the team you know and we'll follow yeah Eric thank you for sharing those insights and thank you for all of your excellent questions but before I click end meeting It's A View From The Top tradition to close with a lightning round so I'll say a short statement and you answer with the first thing that comes into your head sure ready yeah always ready most annoying Zoom habit favorite basketball team oh Warriors for sure so yeah got some fans uh number of Zoom weddings you've attended more than a dozen so well if you're looking for any more I have quite a few friends getting married this year so we can we can do the wedding ceremony host on Zoom that's the best use case because you even know you need to make up Zuma has a very cool feature called touch up your appearance right so I'll keep that in mind uh best advice you've ever received from your parents hard work and stay humble and something you can't live without love and I think the world that we live in today that's something that we could all use a bit more of Eric thank you it's been a privilege thank you [Music]

2022-10-19 18:49

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