David Rosenthal: evaluation

Transcript context

…It is a huge vertical, I think it makes perfect sense for these disruptive technologies. If you think even about Apple, the way they did it, they went into the education vertical because that’s where you capture the next generation. The older generation is probably okay with what they have, things are not going to change, but the younger generations are expecting a different type of experience. Then those younger generations get into the workforce and they demand the same type of experiences. This was not only a great decision by Eric to focus on education early on, but I feel that they also created a lot of value because if you’re trying to communicate to someone and deliver a message and people are remote, they can’t show up to class and you have a seamless way to communicate, that’s going to have a huge impact. I believe that if we could measure the impact on happiness within students and graduation rates of those people using Zoom, we should probably see an increase there. I was thinking about it as education was a great beachhead customer because they are ready to adopt, but that’s such a good point too. Again, what a perfect strategy to go in, these kids are all going to join the workforce. They’re going to show up and they’re going to be like, “Eww, I’m using a Polycom?” That’s icing on the cake. Timing is all about are you solving a customer’s pain point in a way where they didn’t have this pain before? Where there’s an opportunity for you to slide in there? All these companies had already bought the IT departments, had all bought video conferencing “systems” before so there is not really an opportunity there, but this slipstream that happened with MOOCs, that happened with students expecting to be able to watch things remotely has enabled you to go, “Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re for.” Then you get this massive upside later of a 20-year benefit of them joining the workforce and selling within their own companies.…

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