How Zoom’s CEO runs his calls, from background choices to his exit strategy

• Eric Yuan founded Zoom in 2011 and took the company public in 2019.
• Yuan said he prefers his Zoom meetings to be informal so that attendees “can be themselves.”
• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said he likes meetings to be “messy,” where people offer dissenting views.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan says there are two things people need to do if they want to make their Zoom calls more productive.

“Number one, you need to prepare: who to invite, who not to invite, and a very clear agenda,” Yuan said in an interview with The New York Times published Sunday.

“The second thing: Make sure everyone can be themselves,” he added.

Yuan said people should avoid being “too nice, too polite” when they are on a Zoom call.

“It’s becoming too formal. It’s OK to interrupt a little bit. And after the meeting, you need to have some follow-up,” he told the Times.

Yuan said that what separates a good meeting from a bad one depends on whether participants are engaged. He added that Zoom meetings should not run for more than three hours.

Representatives for Yuan at Zoom did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Yuan told the Times that he cycled through different virtual backgrounds for his Zoom calls. Now, he’s using his office as a background.

When it comes to signing off a call, Yuan said he takes a nondescript approach.

“Sometimes I just send a channel message: ‘Sorry, I got to do something.’ I use the chat a lot before I leave,” Yuan said, adding that he includes a Zoom meeting link on his email signature in case people want to set up meetings with him.

Yuan isn’t the only CEO who believes that meetings should be free-flowing to spur discussions.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said at The New York Times DealBook Summit last year that he prefers “messy” meetings instead of overly scripted ones.

“You don’t want the whole thing to be figured out and then presented to you,” Bezos said.

“You want to be part of the sausage-making. Like, show me the ugly bits. And I always ask, ‘Are there any dissenting opinions on the team?’ I want to try and get to the controversy,” he added.

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