Zoom App - How it Became So Popular

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this particular app Zoom suddenly became a hit amongst many people around the world. As many cities across the world are under quarantine and lockdown #Stayathome, this situation has made the founder of zoom rather popular on social media and on the media, especially in the United States of America.

You might have known many other video conferencing apps like Skype. Well, Zoom is pretty much similar in that a lot of companies will use it so that a meeting can be held online and it is pretty useful when you are under quarantine.

Beneficial of Zoom

As we all know there is an abundance of apps similar to Zoom that has been created before but were not popular. For instance, Microsoft created Skype, Google with Hangout, and Cisco with WebEx.

Some of the interesting things regarding Zoom include:

Get access to analytics like top users by meeting minutes
Do screen share when calling
Integration with Slack and Zapier
Get started for free and you can host up to 100 people in one video call

Background of Eric Yuan

It's no surprise that the Chinese managed to copycat pretty much anything and it seems that they are just very good at it. Zoom was established by Eric Yuan who was born in the city of Shandong and happens to be the son of a mining engineer. Eric graduated from Shandong University of Science and Technology where he took a course in mathematics major.

Eric moved to the United States in the year 1997 after working for 4 years in Japan. He was inspired to move to the US as he heard from a popular spokesperson in the tech industry, Bill Gates regarding the future of the internet.

It will be quite challenging for any foreigners to settle down and Eric, it is no exception. He had trouble getting his visa approved since he was not a fluent English speaker. Eric was rejected up to 8 times and for the 9th time, he managed to get approval for his visa due to him not giving up despite the hurdles he went through.

When he first arrived in the US, he worked for the company WebEx which provides the service of video conferencing before it was bought by Cisco in the year 2007. He only worked there for 4 years and ended up quitting the job due to not having the same understanding regarding the future of the company.

Eric decided that he will start his own company and named it Zoom to implement his own ideas which were not accepted at Cisco. One of his struggles, in the beginning, was to get the trust of the people around him and not a lot of them have faith in him.

It seems too good to be true for a startup company to even compete with top companies like Microsoft and Cisco but Eric managed to find a way to get around it.

He borrowed money from his friends and family to expand his company. A lot of hard work and dedication has been put into his company and through time, Zoom managed to attract many users worldwide, and Zoom managed to pull in many investors to invest in the company.

Managed to Get into NASDAQ

It was listed on NASDAQ a year ago and due to this event, it managed to make Eric Yuan a Billionaire. On the first day of the launch of its IPO, the price of Zoom's stocks increased by 72%. This just shows how much trust it has gained over the years.

Currently, Zoom has 17 data centers across the globe including China.

One might ask; how did Zoom become so popular so quick. Well, thanks to COVID-19 a lot of people have to stay indoors and a lot of interaction with the outside world can mostly be done online. Since certain people need to talk to others but are unable to do it face to face can now be done through the Zoom app.

From merely 10 million users, it went to 200 million users in one day.

Since the quarantine has commenced worldwide, Zoom has certainly been beneficial for those who need to interact with one another by video-conferencing. This situation has made Eric Yuan gain billions of dollars in a period of 3 months.

Controversy Took Place

With all the good things being heard about Zoom, it is also facing backlash due to the breach of personal data and rumors have it that 500,000 personal data are being sold to the dark web. This has caused concern for the safety of the app itself and how it will impact the users themselves.

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In the United States, many companies have flagged the app Zoom and Elon Musk even ban the use of Zoom while having a meeting with his co-workers. They claimed that it happens because of the exponential increase in the number of users in a short period of time and they were not able to cope with such huge data.

However, Eric Yuan also promised that he will be fixing the issues promptly especially related to the personal data breach. Zoom is starting to get the attention of many users and it will be sad if all his hard work all go to waste. He also promised to improve their quality of service in the future to provide the best user experience.

The company Zoom is said to be worth $35 Billion USD and it has over 30,000 clients which comprise Samsung, Uber, and Walmart.

With all being said, it is never impossible for anyone to achieve their dreams and it seems that the move of Eric Yuan to move the United States might be his best move which made him a billionaire today.

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