Zoom, the videoconferencing platform that profited substantially from remote work during the pandemic, is now asking employees to return to the office. Its CEO, Eric Yuan, claims Zoom meetings don’t let people build trust or be innovative.
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Yuan explained that trust is essential “for everything,” and he finds it hard to build not only that but also innovation and debates over Zoom.
“Quite often, you come up with great ideas, but when we are all on Zoom, it’s really hard,” Yuan said, according to Insider. “We cannot have a great conversation. We cannot debate each other well because everyone tends to be very friendly when you join a Zoom call.”
This isn’t against his business. This is against his business getting deeply enmeshed with a bunch of ineffective organizations.
A company has health just like a body has health. A healthy company will succeed long term, and selling to customers who either don’t need or are harmed by your product is a recipe for a sick company.
It’s against his company because he’s saying their clients are losing something by using their product. He can’t pretend that it’s exclusive to Zoom and all of his clients aren’t affected.
That’s the CEO saying “our product isn’t good at what it was meant to do”… A good board would get rid of him ASAP.
No, he’s saying their clients are losing something by using their product too extensively.
You know how Soylent puts this on their bottles:
It’s a similar thing. They’re just being realistic about how the intention isn’t to eliminate food. And Zoom was developed with the intention to handle some business communication, not all.
I do this same thing. When a customer isn’t sure about some appliances they want to buy, I tell them to hold off. Sometimes I tell them to spend $20 and get a new dryer belt because I can tell they don’t need a $600 new dryer.
Is that “against my business” because I’m making a little less money that day? No. It’s for my business because my business isn’t just about optimizing today’s revenues. I want relationships. I want a trail of happy customers who have truly benefitted from doing business with me. I want people talking about how shopping with me was a good choice for them.
Me telling a customer they don’t need to buy the $600 dryer they came in to buy is a win. And this is evidenced by my massive sales numbers. People appreciate it when other people constrain themselves for their benefit.
What he’s doing is a powerful move that will result in his company’s success: he’s demonstrating a commitment to the truth, and a sense of his product’s place in a larger context. That’s rare, and highly valued, and it will help him win.
As I said in another reply to you, their stock is back down to pre pandemic level, what the CEO is doing will lower the demand for their product, thus lowering their stock even more.
So as I said, a responsible board would kick him out and find someone that wants to push for 100% remote work to set the example to increase demand for their product.
Yeah but isn’t this more like you telling the customer that you don’t personally use a dryer because you don’t know how to make it work? Sure it’s possible you know all of the mechanics of a dryer without knowing what the controls on the top do, but it doesn’t really inspire a lot of confidence from the customer if you can’t make the product you’re selling work for yourself.