Zoom CEO on dealing with competitors

In a new interview with Yahoo Finance's Andy Serwer, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, discussed how the company is handling its competitors.

Video transcript

ANDY SERWER: I want to ask you about the competition, and first I want to ask about the past and then I want to ask about the present and the future. In the past there were competitors and still are, like Skype and Webex at Cisco, which you know all about. How come they didn't take advantage of the opportunity the way that you did?

ERIC YUAN: I think that they did try. I think they tried hard. But I think, you know, first of all, I would say we built everything from the ground up with a cloud-based, video-first architecture. A huge difference in terms of architecture, right? And plus we really focused on the customer experience to make sure simplify the product usability. You know, no matter who you are, in K-12 in kids or grandparents, they know how to use Zoom. Zoom just works. I think, you know, ultimately, I think we spent more time on talking with our customers, and when we really understand the customer's pain point we build a better solution. That's the reason why we're ahead of the game.

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, and then I want to ask about the new competitors and the current competitors, which includes Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. And what concerns you about these two giant companies getting into the space and really competing with you vigorously?

ERIC YUAN: Yeah, those two companies are great companies, right? And not only do we have a little bit of overlap, but also we partner with both Microsoft and Google, right? I know both companies very well. We learn a lot from those two great companies. I really do not think, you know, we should have focused on the Microsoft of the Google. I'm a competitor just to ourselves.

The reason why there's huge opportunities, you know, for the next 10 years and why do we need to focus on our competitors, so got to spend more time on talking with our customers, make sure our employees happy, keep innovating. I think we will be OK. If you're laser focused on competitors, what if they are building something not right, right? So you've got to focus on customers. That's why we do not feel we're concerned about any of our competitors.