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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 855 Shen Neil|# 857 Mikhail Gutseriev ➡

# 856 Eric Yuan 

$3.74B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$33.2M (-0.89%)

# 856 Eric Yuan 

$3.74B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$33.2M (-0.89%)
OccupationFounder and CEO, Zoom Video Communications
Source of WealthZoom Video Communications
Age54
ResidenceSanta Clara, California
Marital StatusMarried
Children3
EducationMaster of Engineering Management, China University of Mining and Technology; Bachelor of Engineering, Shandong Institute of Business and Technology
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$5.61B
Eric Yuan
Eric Yuan
United States
Net worth: $3.74B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Overview

Eric Yuan is a Chinese-American billionaire businessman, engineer, and the founder and CEO of Zoom Video Communications.
He became wealthy through the success of Zoom, a video communications tool that surged in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Early Life

Eric Yuan was born on February 20, 1970, in Tai'an, Shandong Province, China, to geological engineers.
In 4th grade, he collected construction scraps for recycling to earn cash.
As a university student, he was inspired to develop videotelephony software during long train rides to visit his girlfriend.
He earned a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics and a master's degree in geological engineering.

Career

After moving to Silicon Valley in 1997, Yuan joined WebEx, a web conferencing startup, where he became one of the first 20 hires.
When WebEx was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007, Yuan became vice president of engineering.
In 2011, he pitched a new video conferencing system idea to Cisco, but when it was rejected, he left Cisco to found Zoom Video Communications.
Zoom went public in 2019, making Yuan a billionaire, and its value surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal Life

Yuan married his girlfriend Sherry while he was a master's student in Beijing; they have three children.
One of his children, Roy Yuan, plays on the Stanford basketball team.
He lives with his family in Santa Clara, California, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2007.
Yuan chose the middle initial 'S' after Subrah Iyar, co-founder of WebEx.

Recognition

Eric Yuan was named the 2020 Time Businessperson of the Year and included in the Time 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
His net worth increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching $16.4 billion in September 2020.

Zoom Founding and Growth

Eric Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 after leaving Cisco, initially facing challenges in finding investors due to market saturation perceptions.
The company raised $3 million in seed money in June 2011, with initial backers including Subrah Iyar and Dan Scheinman.
Zoom launched its beta version in September 2012 and secured Stanford University as its first customer.
By January 2013, Zoom had raised $6 million in Series A funding and launched its software, quickly gaining users.
Over the years, Zoom expanded partnerships, raised significant funding, and integrated with various software platforms, experiencing rapid growth.
In January 2017, Zoom achieved unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation after raising $100 million in Series D funding from Sequoia Capital.

How long would it take you to become as rich as Eric Yuan?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.06% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach Eric Yuan's net worth of $3.74B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 48.24% compared to 16.19% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

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Eric Yuan is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For Eric Yuan, Zoom Video Communications is the primary source. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey