Founder and CEO of Zoom Video Communications, Yuan is a Chinese-American billionaire businessman who owns approximately 22% of the company. After earning his master's degree, Yuan lived in Beijing and attended a training program in Japan for four months. Inspired by Bill Gates, who spoke in Japan in 1994, he moved to Silicon Valley in 1997 to join the tech boom. At the time, Yuan spoke very little English, and applied nine times before being granted a visa to the United States.
Upon arriving in the US, Yuan joined WebEx, a web conferencing startup, where he was one of the first 20 hires. The company was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007, at which time he became vice president of engineering. In 2011, Yuan pitched a new smartphone-friendly video conferencing system to Cisco management. When the idea was rejected, he left Cisco to establish his own company, Zoom Video Communications.
In 2019, Zoom became a public company via an initial public offering, at which time Yuan became a billionaire. His wealth increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Zoom benefited from the shift to online work and teaching. On September 1, 2020, Yuan's net worth was estimated to be $US16.4 billion—a figure 360% higher than his net worth at the beginning of the year.
