Zoom Video Communications

Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing, online meeting, and group messaging platform. Founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan (CEO, a former Cisco WebEx engineer who was turned down 8 times for a US visa before finally getting approved), Zoom Video Communications is headquartered in San Jose, California. The company went public on Nasdaq in April 2019 (ticker: ZM) and saw explosive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching over 300 million daily meeting participants. The company serves over 200,000 enterprise customers including Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions. Key features: video meetings: host HD video meetings with up to 1,000 participants (Enterprise plan). Supports gallery view, speaker view, and immersive view. Virtual backgrounds, touch-up appearance, and video filters. Screen sharing: share entire screen, specific windows, or portions of the screen. Co-annotation with remote control. Whiteboard: collaborative digital whiteboard for brainstorming. Zoom Rooms: dedicated conference room solutions with hardware integration (displays, cameras, microphones). Zoom Phone: cloud PBX phone system with call routing, voicemail, and call recording. Zoom Webinars: broadcast to up to 50,000 attendees with registration, Q&A, polling, and analytics. Zoom Events: virtual event platform with ticketing, lobbies, and expo booths. Recording: cloud and local recording with transcription (powered by Otter.ai). Chat: persistent team chat with channels, threads, and file sharing. Breakout rooms: split meetings into smaller groups. Reactions and non-verbal feedback. Live streaming to YouTube, Facebook, and custom RTMP. End-to-end encryption option. AI Companion: meeting summaries, chat compose, and whiteboard generation. Mobile apps for iOS and Android. JavaScript/C++. Proprietary with free tier.