Zoom CEO: 'I Really Messed Up'

As many companies shift gears or close doors in the coronavirus economy, Zoom has had the enviable problem of managing what the Wall Street Journal calls "breakneck growth." Except that, per the Journal, "it hasn't been going well" as the videoconferencing company has been beset with security and privacy issues as hordes of businesses and the bored homebound alike have turned to its services. "'If we mess up again, it’s done,’ I thought a lot last night," CEO Eric Yuan, who founded the company nine years ago, says. Around 10 million people were using Zoom to meet each day at the end of 2019; that number is now 200 million. But Zoom proved popular with trolls, too, who hacked into meetings with hate speech and porn and coined the term "Zoombombing."

A file-naming protocol resulted in thousands of recorded Zoom meetings—including highly sensitive corporate meetings and therapy sessions—being made readily available online, notes Mashable. Yuan says he's throwing all his resources at closing the holes and restoring trust in his company. "I really messed up as CEO, and we need to win their trust back. This kind of thing shouldn’t have happened. But the good news—if we can learn the hard lessons and become better and stronger and we can win users back, in one or two or three years, it may have been worth it. But the journey is so painful." (More Zoom stories.)