Due to the global spread of the epidemic, the demand for telecommuting in various countries has greatly increased, which has also enabled Zoom to enter the public eye more quickly. However, there are a lot of people's popularity. Although the US stocks have been blown four times in 10 days without affecting Zoom's stock price-the stock price has risen by 70% in 3 months, but recently Zoom has been frequently questioned due to privacy and security issues, and even has been banned. use. To make matters worse, in addition to the privacy and security issues, issues related to its insufficient R&D investment and the massive use of cheap labor have also been criticized.
1 privacy issues frequent
Recently, Zoom’s privacy and security issues have been frequently reported. It has been exposed that it sends user data to Facebook, does not use end-to-end encryption as advertised, and downloads applications through pre-loading without the user’s consent. It is also banned by NASA and SpaceX.. .... But even so, Zoom's stock price has achieved an increase of more than 142% in less than a year compared to the initial price of $62 per share.
In fact, this is not the first time that Zoom has been exposed to privacy issues. As early as 2019, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh disclosed a serious zero-day vulnerability in the Zoom video conferencing application on Mac computers: Any website can open a video call on a Mac computer with the Zoom application installed, which will lead to The privacy and security of at least 4 million Zoom users have been affected.
Regarding this matter, Zoom stated in its website statement at the time: "We believe this is a reasonable solution to the problem of poor user experience, enabling users to join meetings with one click faster. We are not the only ones using this solution. Video conferencing provider."
2 The year when Zoom's stock price soared: R&D accounted for less than 10%
The stock price continued to rise. Zoom, which frequently ushered in high-light moments because of the excellent experience of the product, was not only questioned because of privacy and security issues, but also criticized for ignoring investment in technology research and development.
On April 18, 2019, Zoom was listed on NASDAQ. Since then, the stock price has risen all the way, from the closing price of US$62 per share on the first day of listing to the closing price of more than US$150 per share on March 30, an increase of more than 142% in less than a year and a market value of more than US$40.7 billion. (Because of many consecutive days of privacy and security issues, the stock price on April 1st has fallen to US$146.12 per share, and the current market value is US$38.223 billion, or about 271 billion yuan)
Unlike most technology companies that are preparing to go public, Zoom has used financial reports to prove that the company is profitable before going public. According to Zoom’s financial report, the company’s 2016 fiscal year revenue was 60.8 million U.S. dollars, and by 2017 fiscal year it increased to 152 million U.S. dollars. In 2018 fiscal year, it continued to increase to 331 million U.S. dollars. It turned losses into profits in the year, with a net profit of USD 7.58 million.
According to Zoom’s “Prospectus”, in the fiscal year ending January 31, 2019, the company’s revenue was US$331 million and net profit was US$7.58 million. In contrast, R&D expenditure is only 33 million U.S. dollars. In other words, Zoom’s R&D expenditure accounts for less than 10% of its revenue, which is much smaller than other commercial software manufacturers, and even lower than the R&D ratio of some smaller software development companies, such as , Atlassian’s development costs account for more than 40% of its revenue; companies such as Zendesk and Hubspot spend more than 20% of their revenue on research and development.
Judging from this data, Zoom's R&D investment is indeed not so atmospheric. Zoom's main competitors in similar markets are Avaya, Cisco, and Microsoft. Compared with these companies, the main advantage of Zoom lies in the fact that most of its product developers are located in China. According to Zoom’s “Prospectus”, Zoom has more than 500 employees in multiple R&D centers in China, accounting for about 30% of its labor force and 70% of its non-US employees.
根据国外招聘网站 Glassdoor 显示，中国的入门级软件工程师每年平均工资约 34350 美元（折合人民币约为 24.4 万元），是美国同等级别工程师年平均收入的三分之一（圣何塞地区同等级别工程师年平均收入约为 11 万美元）。
Zoom 在其招股书的“风险因素”部分中明确写道：
我们的产品开发团队主要在中国，那里的人力成本比其他许多地区的成本都要低。如果我们不得不将产品开发团队转移到其他地区，那么我们可能需要承担更高的运营支出，这将对我们的运营利润率造成不利影响，并损害我们的业务。
3廉价劳力：2 万元月薪中国工程师远程工作
Zoom 之所以会将大规模的研发部署在中国，原因之一是公司创始人兼 CEO 有着中国血统，这样的背景让他更容易在国内组建起一支庞大的研发团队。
对比一下，Zoom 美国总部所在的加州圣何塞（San Jose）地区，软件工程师职位平均税前年薪为 135977 美元（约合人民币 91 万元）。也就是说，每一位中国的工程师每年将为 Zoom 节省约 70 万元，500 位工程师每年节省的成本就达到 3.65 亿元。
市场分析师 Tomasz Tunguz 曾表示，这种“劳动力市场套利”模式是 Zoom 盈利的主要驱动力。如果研发成本再高一点，Zoom 的盈利可能就无法实现了。Zoom 营收一路增长的背后，是数百名月薪 2 万元的中国工程师任劳任怨付出的结果。
Tunguz 在一封电子邮件中称，在科技公司中，劳动力套利或将工作转移到廉价地区呈现出日益增长的趋势。许多投资公司目前都在世界各地寻找人才，由于劳动力成本优势，他们更愿意在硅谷之外聘请远程工程师。
企业软件供应商 Zuora 公司 CEO Tien Tzuo 表示：
随着阿里巴巴和腾讯等中国本土科技巨头的崛起，中国市场对技术人才的竞争越来越激烈，近年来中美工程师之间的薪资差距已经逐渐缩小。但我仍然认为，聘用远程工程师是公司战略的重要组成部分，任何不采取这种分布式工程布局的公司都将“出局”。
针对远程可能带来的隐私问题，Zoom 在一份文件中表明：“我们在中国有着众多开发者，这可能使我们面临解决方案或数据安全功能完整性相关的市场审查。”可见，尽管在短期内 Zoom 的这种劳动力套利模式起到了一定成效，但要一直依靠压缩研发成本来保证利润率却并非长久之事。
4Zoom 成长背后：两千以上花销 CEO 亲自过
Zoom 于 2011 年由华人企业家袁征创办。1997 年 8 月袁征来到美国，起初任职于 WebEx 公司，2007 年， WebEx 被 Cisco 收购后，他作为思科全球副总裁主管协作软件开发业务。2011 年，袁征离开思科，创立了 Zoom。
随着李嘉诚、红杉资本等资本的注入，Zoom 也慢慢发展壮大起来。Zoom 之所以能在短时间内迅速崛起，与其背后的价值观和文化关系密切。很多人认为文化是非常虚的东西，没有什么必要，在袁征看来这完全是错的。
在 Zoom，不仅是研发成本压缩，公司花费是一定要被控制的。袁征早期的分享中曾谈到：
公司早期的时候，杨致远投资了我们，有一次，我和杨致远还有另外两个投资人一起吃饭，吃了一顿比较贵的寿司，当时我就想，他们是投资人，肯定不能让他们掏钱，所以最后那顿饭是我自己花钱请的。有的人说，其实用公司的卡刷一下也可以，但我认为这样不行，这个钱不应该由公司来花，因为投资人给公司的每一分钱都应该要明确的知道花在了哪里，花的有没有作用。
在 Zoom，2000 元以上的花销，袁征都会亲自把关。通过每天签支票，了解公司的钱花在了什么地方，为什么有的部门花的多，有的部门支出少等这些问题，能让创始人很好的了解公司正在进行的各项活动。这个签字把关并不会让公司的运行变得复杂，因为机制都是最简化的，任何一项材料签字都不会超过两个人，充分信任各个部门主管和负责人们。
在袁征看来，Zoom 最核心的竞争力是他的销售力。Zoom 总在考虑如何让客户开心，每天想的是提升自己产品性能、给客户创造更多方便，关心客户的需求。所有的销售人员除了发展新客户，一定要花时间去跟老客户打交道，询问客户使用体验并提供帮助，得到反馈并保持友好的关系。甚至可以说，Zoom 公司的任何一个管理人员都是一个称职的销售。
这大概就是 Zoom 这家公司可以如此快速成长的原因，强悍的销售力带来了丰厚的营收，而又极大压缩成本，使其获得不错的利润。
然而，如上文所言，这种通过雇佣中国工程师造成的“劳动力市场套利”模式虽然压缩了成本，但难以持久。
在营收层面，摩根大通分析师 Sterling Auty 在一份报告中称，“尽管由于新冠疫情影响，大多数公司不得不并要求员工在家办公，让 Zoom 软件的使用量显著增加，但这一情况实际上对本季度的财务结果没有实质性影响，因为大部分使用量都来自免费服务，Zoom 管理层认为现在判断这些新用户是否能转换为付费用户还为时尚早。”
5结语
过去很长一段时间，Zoom 因为大量雇佣中国工程师远程工作就曾被外媒质疑过数据安全和隐私问题。疫情期间，Zoom 又接二连三曝出隐私问题，纽约总检察长 Letitia James 也致信 Zoom，要求该公司在处理敏感和隐私相关的问题上更加透明。对于这些质疑，Zoom 接下来会做出哪些调整，是否会考虑增加外籍本土工程师的雇佣，减少远程依赖，并增加研发投入，我们暂时不得而知。