Even the founder of Zoom has admitted he’s sick of endless virtual meetings on his company’s videoconferencing software.
Eric Yuan, 51, told a virtual summit of leading CEOs hosted by the Wall Street Journal that at his peak he once had 19 Zoom meetings in a row in one day.
“I’m so tired of that,” Yuan said, chuckling when asked if even he had “Zoom fatigue.”
“I do have meeting fatigue. I do not have any back-to-back meetings anymore, and I feel much more comfortable now,” he said.
Yuan’s company, which he founded in 2011, was relatively unknown before becoming ubiquitous when workers around the world were forced to start working from home during the pandemic.
He is now worth $13.2 billion, according to Forbes, which lists him at No. 133 in its list of billionaires.
Still, Yuan now wants his own staff to go back to old-fashioned meetings, saying Zoom staff will be expected to return to the office at least two days a week.
Nasdaq chief executive Adena Friedman told the WSJ summit that New York employers may need to “encourage and entice employees to come back into the city,” hopefully leading to a “reawakening” of urban centers.
Not everyone planned to be as flexible, however.
“Yes, people don’t like commuting, but so what?” JPMorgan chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said. “We want people back at work and my view is some time in September, October, it will look just like it did before.”
Ellen Kullman, CEO of 3-D printing startup Carbon Inc., agreed.
“It’s not a democracy. We’re not going to vote,” she said of her plans to get her staff “back to a more in-person environment.”