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Eric Yuan

Founder & CEO, Zoom · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveengineer@ericsyuan ↗LinkedIn ↗zoom.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Before founding Zoom in 2011, Yuan was an early engineer at WebEx and later served as Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco Systems. He guided Zoom to an IPO in 2019 and oversaw its growth into a global communications platform.

8statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.12/5average certainty → 1.88/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 3said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Eric argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Eric Yuan on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Eric Yuan said on Acquired that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Yuan: Zoom's unpredictable self-serve online segment is its biggest business challenge
“In our case, actually, I can tell you today, the biggest challenge is our online business, right? It's very profitable. However, it's very hard to predict, right? They come today, next two months, we might leave, they cancel the service. This is not a great bu…”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 31:25 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Insight
Yuan: Startups need seasoned executives only after product-market fit
“Not early stage. You know, for the first four years, no need. But down the road, you already see the market of fate, right, the product of fate. You want to scale your business. At that time, you have to change your philosophy.”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 46:37 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Opinion
Yuan: SaaS companies mistakenly settle for low marketing ROI instead of 4x returns
“Don't believe that. That's the mistake for all the SaaS companies. It's not one dollar and 50 cents back, not three dollars, it should be four dollars, right? It should optimize.”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 50:38 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Disclosure
Yuan: No VCs wanted to invest in Zoom when founded in 2011
“I started a company in 2011. First thing I did, I opened up a Wells Fargo bank account. I started, it's very easy for me to raise capital. That's why I opened up a bank account. Unfortunately, it took me for several months. No visits wanted to invest me.”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 8:52 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Disclosure
Yuan: Zoom raised a Series D round anticipating an economic collapse
“After the research meeting from emergency capital, as, at that time, seriously, we had a new plan, or so ever, to raise another round of capital. And the reason why we still went and moved forward to have a serious digs, because I thought the economy will win,…”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 12:05 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Assertion Partly supported
Yuan: Zoom operated without any marketing team until 2015
“For the first four years, we do not have any marketing team. Only until 2015, we started, you know, building up a marketing team, so.”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 21:41 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Insight
Yuan: Not building a second product years before IPO was Zoom's biggest mistake
“If you wanted to have new service, you cannot have a new service today, right? You need to think about, you know, trying to make a decision two or three years, you know, before that, right? That's, I clearly remember that conversation. You know, that's why, th…”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 55:53 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Yuan: Walt Mossberg's WSJ review drove 50,000 Zoom users overnight
“And the good news, he did write down a very nice article published in Wall Street Journal, and also he personally recorded a video, and over the night, we got a 50, 50,000.”
Eric Yuan May 19, 2022 ▶ 22:49 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired

The other half of the tape: Eric Yuan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on Acquired. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Ben Gilbert 2

Statements about Eric Yuan, by other people (1)

Opinion
Rosenthal: Zoom's massive cash flow stems from capital-efficient DNA, not pandemic hype
“They're two of the greatest of all time. Literally two of the goats at this, which is so funny. You know, now everybody thinks of Zoom as the, you know, pandemic, you know, high flyer, and it's like, I was just thinking every time over the last few years, like…”
David Rosenthal May 19, 2022 ▶ 1:08:05 Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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01120222023episodes it came up in
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2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner) · Acquired May 19, 2022 16m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Eric Yuan was played rather than Eric taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories · Acquired Jun 20, 2022 21s clip played
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