The irony of the situation still seems distant to the CEO. According to the leaked meeting on August 3, Yuan told employees that Zoom the product does not allow Zoom the company to “build as much trust or be as innovative as in the office.”
Of course it doesn’t. It allows people to communicate remotely. But it’s not a 100% substitute for meeting people in person, and pretending otherwise would be stupid. Of course meeting in person builds more trust than video-chats. And discussions on a real whiteboard can be much more productive than on a video call, depending on the topic.
So why does it even exist
Why does the telephone exist? Zoom exists for the same reason. To let people talk remotely. It has some extra features a telephone doesn’t, but that’s it. It’s not supposed replace meeting other people.
Now,
I totally think that in Zoom’s case, there’s no real reason to bring employees to the office, and this is just a corporate power play.
I also think there’s no point for Zoom to exist when there are great open source alternatives.
But the particular argument this article lays out just makes no sense.