Personally, I don't think it can be understated how impactful Zoom's IPO is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Eric Yuan is the first Asian billionaire created from running an American tech company. Others have come close (Justin Kan/Twitch, Tony Hsiehs/Zappos), but Eric is the first.
And I think this really marks the start of an increase in Asian/Indian-American entrepreneurs making waves in the upcoming decades. For all the talk about overrepresentation of Asian-Americans in tech, most are limited to technical/individual contributor/engineering roles. Very little Asian representation in management/executive roles, but it's quickly rising. Andrew Chen, Connie Chan @ a16z. Jessica Lee @ Sequoia.
I'm Asian-American, grew up in SV (currently in college). An explanation for the pattern I described above is that my and most of friend's parents are immigrants from Asia. Often went to the top universities in their country, and came to US for graduate school, then work for the big tech companies.
And so for them, they weren't able to take any risk - they were there to settle down and start a family. But the new generation of Asian-Americans go to these top colleges, and are able to have the ambition to do entrepreneurship. I'm extremely excited and optimistic to see more AA representation in startups and driving real-world impact.
Yahoo IPO'd 23 years ago, gained 154% on first day of trading. Jerry Yang has probably long been a billionaire (20+ years). Yahoo stock peaked around $120 during dotcom boom. Inital price at IPO was $13.
Re: Asian billionaire created from running an American tech company
You also forgot Jensen Huang of Nvidia. He co-founded Nvidia 1993 (perhaps you weren't born at the time), been CEO and running Nvidia ever since, with a current net worth of $3.6 billion.
And there are older generation Asian-American CEOs running big tech companies and reach billionaire status since 1950s!
- Wang Laboratories CEO An Wang [1]
- Computer Associates International, Inc. former CEO Charles B. Wang [2]
Would definitely bet Steve Chen is near billionaire status now if he joined Google 2006 and stayed for a bunch of years. Google stock and stock market generally has done very well in that time period (minus 2009-10)
And I think this really marks the start of an increase in Asian/Indian-American entrepreneurs making waves in the upcoming decades. For all the talk about overrepresentation of Asian-Americans in tech, most are limited to technical/individual contributor/engineering roles. Very little Asian representation in management/executive roles, but it's quickly rising. Andrew Chen, Connie Chan @ a16z. Jessica Lee @ Sequoia.
I'm Asian-American, grew up in SV (currently in college). An explanation for the pattern I described above is that my and most of friend's parents are immigrants from Asia. Often went to the top universities in their country, and came to US for graduate school, then work for the big tech companies.
And so for them, they weren't able to take any risk - they were there to settle down and start a family. But the new generation of Asian-Americans go to these top colleges, and are able to have the ambition to do entrepreneurship. I'm extremely excited and optimistic to see more AA representation in startups and driving real-world impact.