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ClickUp

Productivity SoftwareFounded 2017
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Leadership History

ClickUp: CEO History

2 leaders · 2017 to present

Who is the CEO of ClickUp?

Zeb Evans is the CEO of ClickUp, in the role since 2017.

Current CEO
Zeb Evans (since 2017)
Leaders documented
2
Founded
2017
NameRoleFromToYears in role
Zeb EvansFounder & CEO2017Present9
Alex YurkowskiCo-Founder & CTO2017Present9

Company Overview

ClickUp sells one idea: that teams should not need separate apps for projects, documents, chat, whiteboards and knowledge search. Where Asana focuses on project tracking, Jira on software issues and Notion on docs, ClickUp tries to cover all of them on a single data model and now layers AI agents on top. It has grown mostly through a free plan that spreads team to team inside companies, then converts to paid seats and enterprise contracts. The company is headquartered in San Diego, California.

ClickUp uses a freemium, product-led model. Individuals and small teams can use it free, which spreads it inside larger companies. A team that wants more storage, AI tools or complex automations has to pay. ClickUp's sales team then works to turn that team's use into a company-wide enterprise licence, which brings in recurring revenue.

Zeb Evans

Founder & CEO

2017 – Present

9 years (current)

Key Decisions & Impact

Co-founded ClickUp in 2017 around the idea of 'one app to replace them all', raised about $535 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Craft Ventures and Georgian, led the ClickUp 3.0 rebuild and ClickUp Brain launch, acquired Qatalog and Codegen in 2025, and cut 22% of staff in May 2026 to reorganise the company around AI agents.

Legacy

Took ClickUp from an internal tool to more than $300 million in ARR and 20 million users by September 2025.

Source →

Alex Yurkowski

Co-Founder & CTO

2017 – Present

9 years (current)

Key Decisions & Impact

Yurkowski architected the incredibly complex, highly customizable core database structure that allowed ClickUp to legitimately replace dozens of disparate SaaS tools (Jira, Asana, Notion) in a single platform.

Legacy

As Co-Founder and former CTO, he led the engineering team during the company's absolute hyper-growth phase, rapidly shipping features to fulfill the audacious 'One app to replace them all' marketing promise.

Source →

Challenges & Strategic Context

ClickUp competes with Asana, Monday.com, Atlassian (Jira and Confluence), Smartsheet and Notion, plus Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which bundle task and document tools into suites customers already pay for. Its feature density gives it a reputation for a steep learning curve, and the 2023 ClickUp 3.0 rebuild was partly a response to years of speed and reliability complaints.

Newer risks are execution-related: the company has not raised a priced round since 2021, so its $4 billion valuation is dated, and the May 2026 decision to cut 22% of staff while promising up to $1 million salary bands for 'builders' bets heavily that AI agents can absorb the work of departed employees.

ClickUp CEO and Leadership FAQ

Who is the CEO of ClickUp and what is his entrepreneurial origin story?

Zeb Evans is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ClickUp. A self-taught programmer and entrepreneur, Evans founded several internet startups in his teens and early twenties before founding ClickUp in 2017.

Who was Alex Yurkowski and what was his role as co-founder?

Alex Yurkowski co-founded ClickUp with Zeb Evans in 2017 and served as Chief Technology Officer during its foundational hyper-growth years, architecting ClickUp's original multi-view database and real-time collaboration engine.

How did Zeb Evans guide the engineering team through the ClickUp 3.0 rebuild?

Recognizing that rapid early feature additions had caused technical debt, Zeb Evans made the bold decision to freeze non-essential feature development for over a year to completely rewrite ClickUp's backend and frontend architecture for ClickUp 3.0.

What leadership philosophy characterizes Zeb Evans's management at ClickUp?

Zeb Evans champions radical customer obsession, high-speed execution, weekly product shipping, total transparency, and a steady mission to save the world 20% of its working time.

Why did Zeb Evans lay off 22% of ClickUp's staff in 2026?

In May 2026 Evans said the cut was not about costs but about restructuring around AI. He described a '100x org' with fewer employees working alongside internal AI agents, and introduced salary bands of up to $1 million for people who build or manage AI systems.

Who is the CEO of ClickUp?

Zeb Evans is the founder and CEO. Known for his hyper-energetic, aggressive marketing style, he previously survived multiple near-death experiences (including a severe home invasion) which he credits for his extreme drive to build the company.

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Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.