During his undergraduate degree , which he started in 1987 , Yuan was inspired to develop videotelephony software as he took 10-hour train rides to visit his girlfriend . Keen to reduce the amount of time he spent travelling , Yuan wanted to look for a different way to ‘ visit ’ her .

Taking inspiration from Gates After completing his undergraduate degree , Yuan embarked on a master ’ s degree in geology engineering from China University of Mining and Technology in Beijing . He continued to live in Beijing following his master ’ s degree and attended training sessions in Japan for four months .

It was in Japan , where Yuan saw Bill Gates speak at a conference in 1995 , when he became inspired to join the tech boom in the US .

Although his visa application was denied eight times before he was allowed to move to California , 27-year-old Yuan moved to the States in 1997 to work at WebEx , a web conferencing startup . He was one of the first 20 people to be hired .

Starting out in the States WebEx was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007 and at the same time , Yuan became vice president of engineering . Just four years

Yuan ’ s estimated net worth in ( USD )

13.7bn later Yuan pitched a new smartphone friendly video conferencing system to Cisco management .

The company rejected Yuan ’ s idea so the entrepreneur left to establish his own company , Zoom Video Communications in 2011 . Originally called Saasbee , Inc , Yuan founded the company with a team of 40 engineers and launched its first software in 2013 .

The growth of Zoom After years of development , Zoom became one of the most widely used web-conferencing products in the world . Over 40 million had used the platform and the company had gained more than 2,500 academic customers since 2015 .

In 2019 , Zoom became a public company via an initial public offering , at which time Yuan became a billionaire .

The impact of COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic saw more and more people and businesses turn to Zoom for business meetings or to catch up with family and friends during isolation .

This acceleration saw Yuan ’ s wealth increase and as of September 2020 , his estimated net worth was around US $ 16.4bn , a figure 360 % higher than his net worth at the beginning of the year . During the same year , Yuan was named 2020 Time Businessperson of the Year and was included in the Time 100 Most Influential People of 2020 .

Yuan transferred $ 6bn of Zoom shares to Grantor Retained Annuity Trust , for which Yuan is a trustee , in March 2021 . technologymagazine . com 19