Zoom Communications, Inc.

Unified CommunicationsFounded 2011- HQ today: San Jose, California, United States

Founders

Who Founded Zoom?

Eric Yuan · Founded 2011 · HQ today: San Jose, California, United States

Who founded Zoom?

Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan in 2011 in San Jose, California, United States. It is now led by Eric Yuan.

Founders: Eric Yuan
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: San Jose, California, United States
Number of founders: 1
Current CEO: Eric Yuan (since 2011)

Where was Zoom founded?: Zoom was founded in San Jose, California, United States in 2011. wikidata.org
When was Zoom founded?: Zoom was founded in 2011.
Who started Zoom?: Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan.
How old is Zoom?: Zoom is 15 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

Eric Yuan was an engineering leader at Cisco Webex. He left in 2011 to start a video meetings company built for cloud and mobile use. Zoom launched its product in 2013, went public on Nasdaq in April 2019, and grew rapidly during the 2020 shift to remote work. In November 2024 it changed its corporate name from Zoom Video Communications, Inc. to Zoom Communications, Inc.

Eric Yuan

Background

Yuan moved from China to the United States in 1997 and joined WebEx. After Cisco bought WebEx in 2007, he stayed on as an engineering vice president. He left in 2011 to start Zoom.

Role at Zoom Communications, Inc.

Eric S. Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 and has been its CEO ever since. He took the company public in 2019, led it through the 2020 remote-work surge and the security fixes that followed, and has since pushed it into phone, contact center and AI products. In November 2024 he renamed it Zoom Communications.

Eric Yuan was born in 1970 in Tai'an. Education: Shandong University of Science and Technology.

Zoom Communications, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Michelle Chang

Chief Financial Officer

2024 – Present

Joined from Microsoft, where she had been CFO of Microsoft Teams, and became Zoom's CFO on October 7, 2024, succeeding Kelly Steckelberg.

Eric Yuan

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

2011 – Present

Has led Zoom from startup to a company with about $5 billion in annual revenue, and is now pushing growth through Enterprise sales and AI products.

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Zoom Communications, Inc. vs Slack Technologies, LLC Leadership →Overview

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Who Founded Zoom? FAQ

Who founded Zoom Video Communications?

Zoom was founded in April 2011 by Eric S. Yuan, who departed his corporate VP role at Cisco Webex alongside over 40 seasoned collaboration software engineers.

Why did Eric Yuan leave Cisco Webex to start Zoom?

Yuan realized that Webex's legacy code was written for dial-up PCs and suffered poor mobile quality; when Cisco executives rejected his proposal to rewrite the platform, he left to build it himself.

Who were the early angel investors who backed Eric Yuan?

Early investors included former Webex CEO Subrah Iyar, former Cisco executive Dan Scheinman, and venture capitalist Jim Scheinman, who invested $3 million in seed capital in 2011.

How did the name 'Zoom' come to be chosen?

Early investor Jim Scheinman suggested the name 'Zoom' (inspired by the children's book Zoom City), replacing the initial corporate placeholder name 'SaaSbee'.

What venture capital firms led early institutional rounds for Zoom?

Qualcomm Ventures and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang backed Series A; Emergence Capital led the Series B in 2013; and Sequoia Capital led the landmark $100M Series D in 2017.

What was unique about the engineering team that built Zoom's early product?

More than 40 engineers followed Yuan from Cisco out of loyalty to his leadership, spending nearly two years quietly rebuilding video compression, screen sharing, and audio routing from scratch.

How did Eric Yuan handle early customer support calls personally?

During Zoom's first three years, whenever a customer cancelled their Zoom subscription, Eric Yuan personally emailed them back to apologize and ask how he could improve the product.

Where is Eric Yuan based today and what is his net worth?

Yuan is based in Silicon Valley, California, and is ranked among the world's wealthiest technology entrepreneurs with a multi-billion-dollar net worth derived from his founding stake in Zoom.

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Who founded Zoom?

Founding Story

Eric Yuan

Background

Role at Zoom Communications, Inc.

Zoom Communications, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Compare Zoom Communications, Inc. Leadership With Competitors

Keep researching Zoom

Who Founded Zoom? FAQ

Who founded Zoom Video Communications?

Why did Eric Yuan leave Cisco Webex to start Zoom?

Who were the early angel investors who backed Eric Yuan?

How did the name 'Zoom' come to be chosen?

What venture capital firms led early institutional rounds for Zoom?

What was unique about the engineering team that built Zoom's early product?

How did Eric Yuan handle early customer support calls personally?

Where is Eric Yuan based today and what is his net worth?

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