The coronavirus pandemic might have paused major
economies of the world, with many people losing employment and many companies
going bankrupt but the net worth of Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom Technologies, has
gone up to $6.48 billion. Zoom is a video-chat app which has gained popularity
among those hosting virtual office meetings. 

Zoom, which was launched in 2012, has gained
immensely from the lockdowns imposed to check the spread of coronavirus. The market cap of Zoom rose to $32 billion on
May 19, Bloomberg’s billionaire index reported.

Who is Eric Yuan?

Born in Shandong Province of China, Eric
envisioned Zoom when he was a freshman in China when he was finding ways to
connect with his long-distance girlfriend, he said in an interview with Yitzi
Weiner for medium.com.

“I first envisioned Zoom when I was a freshman
in college in China and regularly took a ten-hour train ride to visit my
girlfriend (who is now my wife). I detested those rides and used to imagine
other ways I could visit my girlfriend without traveling — those daydreams
eventually became the basis for Zoom,” Yuan told Wiener.

At the age of 22, Yuan got married to his
long-time girlfriend when he was still pursuing his masters. 

Eric decided to come to the United States in the
mid 90s, when he was 27 but his application for a US visa was rejected,
according to a Forbes report. He kept applying for the visa over the course of
the next two years and got it in his ninth try. 

After coming to the US, he was hired as a
software engineer in the video conferencing company WebEx. In 2007, the firm
WebEx was acquired by Cisco Systems for $3.2 billion. Yuan rose to the rank of
vice-president before he left Cisco in June 2011, reported Forbes. 

Yuan left Cisco to found Zoom in June 2011.
“More than 40 fellow engineers followed me in my new venture. We launched the
Zoom platform in 2012,” Yuan told Wiener. 

“The most important thing is not the outcome.
The most important thing is to enjoy the process. I think that as long as
myself and my team and I enjoy working together; Every day we will continue to
build products that make our customers happy, and ultimately then we are
happy,” Yuan had told Forbes.