7 ms·

Don't know what is going on at Zoom, but I suspected at least part of it sneaky. For example, about 3 or 4 weeks ago I heard about this company, and learned th

by jy2947 6y ago

Don't know what is going on at Zoom, but I suspected at least part of it sneaky. For example, about 3 or 4 weeks ago I heard about this company, and learned that it has R&D in China per its SEC filing at IPO. However, checked its website, the career section led me to https://jobs.lever.co/zoom https://jobs.lever.co/zoom, and there was ONLY one opening at China per the website (I remember it was a position at marketing department). Then I searched the company in Chinese media, and saw that they were hiring all types of engineers. That made me feel uncomfortable in buying its stock. Interestingly, now you look at the same career website, and China is removed from the list of city dropdown - maybe they are cutting off or "decoupling" the Chinese R&D?

eythian 6y ago
It could be they advertise jobs in different regions on different systems, to get the closest reach to the potential hirees.
- jy2947 6y ago
  The R&D centers in China (I think there are 3 of them) are their competitive advantage - this can help them manage cost to be profitable from early on. I also think the engineering teams there can share with their peers of the other local Chinese tech firms. For example, China was literately put in lock down in February, and all of the business and schools went on-line in couple of days - that was a enormous achievement for anyone who participated the scaling infrastructure at the big tech companies in China, and I would not be surprised that the Zoom engineers in Chinese R&D learned couple of lessons from them. Zoom even has a feature that you can choose to "soften" your appearance to look "better" in the video conference, which has been feature of camera/image software popular in Asian market. So I suspect their product team may also have some connections there. However, Zoom's biggest advantage is also its biggest risk, if they want to be part of the communication infrastructure of any business/government/university/etc in western countries, especially after so many security incidents that happened in the past years.
yibg 6y ago
Why is having engineers in China cause for suspicion? Lots of tech companies have engineers in China. Eg Microsoft.
- jy2947 6y ago
  What alerted me at that time was the discrepancy between their HR site at U.S of the Chinese opening (only one), and their job postings in Chinese job sites.
  - hedora 6y ago
    I doubt it is a complicated conspiracy. Someone probably pushed the wrong button on the HR site. I’d guess the one opening you saw was coming out of a US manager’s budget, and the manager wanted some physical presence in China to help work with teams that are based there. It’s not surprising that they wouldn’t target China-based positions in fluent Chinese language offices at their US based English language site. Also, I’ve been using Zoom at work for years. They’re more popular with younger firms (“anything but Cisco”, maybe?).
- jy2947 6y ago
  But if Microsoft has teams in China, Russia work on MS Teams, I will be very concerned. The same goes with Slack, that many companies now rely on to keep business going.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Are you certain they don’t?
  - izacus 6y ago
    I'm very sure that Microsoft (and plenty of other companies including Apple) has teams in China, Russia and other countries to develop and update proper localizations for those apps.
  - x0x0 6y ago
    If you have eng in US, having a decent chunk of it in China is much less threatening. For example, your internal controls can specify code review by american employees. Your key servers can remain in America or EU with stronger privacy protection regimes (not necessarily strong; just stronger than China). This isn't perfect, but it makes subversion (1) more difficult, (2) probably more targeted (see eg Saudi Arabia using Saudi nationals employed by Twitter to steal identities of critics on Twitter), (3) more likely to be discovered. My company's security model doesn't include the Chinese government / national security / military, but it could include the Chinese government giving our sales leads (which are evident if you can see our Zoom calls) to a domestic competitor. Broad exfiltration of data like that is much much harder if the engineering core is in the US or EU.
nogabebop23 6y ago
Is it the same company? We have "employees" around the world, but that ranges from employed by the mother ship, employed by one of the various subsidiaries (all with very similar sounding names) or not officially employed but via a local agent (for both liability, regulatory and in certain regimes, mandated).
m_a_g 6y ago
Zoom is fully aware that associating themselves with China considering the latest developments would be catastrophic for them, whether its job listings or some of its servers being in China.
anoraca 6y ago
Unlikely IMO. "Zoom, a Silicon Valley-based company, appears to own three companies in China through which at least 700 employees are paid to develop Zoom’s software. This arrangement is ostensibly an effort at labor arbitrage: Zoom can avoid paying US wages while selling to US customers, thus increasing their profit margin. However, this arrangement may make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities." https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto...
- nilkn 6y ago
  So Zoom is essentially a Chinese company with a formal outer shell in the US and 81% of its revenue coming from North America?
  - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
    That's an excellent business model.
    - sct202 6y ago
      It's basically what a lot of consumer goods companies are now. All the products are made and mostly designed in China, and then the US HQ does all the sales, marketing, and funneling product requirements back to China.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - inetknght 6y ago
        > and funneling product requirements I don't think the funneling stops at product requirements.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 6y ago
zkid18 6y ago
What’s wrong with having R&D in China? The talent market is attractive and assuming Zoom founder is Chinese it seems more reasonable in some point compare to opening another office in US. Lots of big tech companies has strong R&D presence in China like MSFT, GOOGL. Btw, I might be wrong but CCP banned Zoom about half a year ago.

by jy2947 6y ago

eythian 6y ago

It could be they advertise jobs in different regions on different systems, to get the closest reach to the potential hirees.

jy2947 6y ago
The R&D centers in China (I think there are 3 of them) are their competitive advantage - this can help them manage cost to be profitable from early on. I also think the engineering teams there can share with their peers of the other local Chinese tech firms. For example, China was literately put in lock down in February, and all of the business and schools went on-line in couple of days - that was a enormous achievement for anyone who participated the scaling infrastructure at the big tech companies in China, and I would not be surprised that the Zoom engineers in Chinese R&D learned couple of lessons from them. Zoom even has a feature that you can choose to "soften" your appearance to look "better" in the video conference, which has been feature of camera/image software popular in Asian market. So I suspect their product team may also have some connections there. However, Zoom's biggest advantage is also its biggest risk, if they want to be part of the communication infrastructure of any business/government/university/etc in western countries, especially after so many security incidents that happened in the past years.

yibg 6y ago

Why is having engineers in China cause for suspicion? Lots of tech companies have engineers in China. Eg Microsoft.

jy2947 6y ago
What alerted me at that time was the discrepancy between their HR site at U.S of the Chinese opening (only one), and their job postings in Chinese job sites.
- hedora 6y ago
  I doubt it is a complicated conspiracy. Someone probably pushed the wrong button on the HR site. I’d guess the one opening you saw was coming out of a US manager’s budget, and the manager wanted some physical presence in China to help work with teams that are based there. It’s not surprising that they wouldn’t target China-based positions in fluent Chinese language offices at their US based English language site. Also, I’ve been using Zoom at work for years. They’re more popular with younger firms (“anything but Cisco”, maybe?).
jy2947 6y ago
But if Microsoft has teams in China, Russia work on MS Teams, I will be very concerned. The same goes with Slack, that many companies now rely on to keep business going.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Are you certain they don’t?
- izacus 6y ago
  I'm very sure that Microsoft (and plenty of other companies including Apple) has teams in China, Russia and other countries to develop and update proper localizations for those apps.
- x0x0 6y ago
  If you have eng in US, having a decent chunk of it in China is much less threatening. For example, your internal controls can specify code review by american employees. Your key servers can remain in America or EU with stronger privacy protection regimes (not necessarily strong; just stronger than China). This isn't perfect, but it makes subversion (1) more difficult, (2) probably more targeted (see eg Saudi Arabia using Saudi nationals employed by Twitter to steal identities of critics on Twitter), (3) more likely to be discovered. My company's security model doesn't include the Chinese government / national security / military, but it could include the Chinese government giving our sales leads (which are evident if you can see our Zoom calls) to a domestic competitor. Broad exfiltration of data like that is much much harder if the engineering core is in the US or EU.

nogabebop23 6y ago

Is it the same company? We have "employees" around the world, but that ranges from employed by the mother ship, employed by one of the various subsidiaries (all with very similar sounding names) or not officially employed but via a local agent (for both liability, regulatory and in certain regimes, mandated).

m_a_g 6y ago

Zoom is fully aware that associating themselves with China considering the latest developments would be catastrophic for them, whether its job listings or some of its servers being in China.

anoraca 6y ago

Unlikely IMO. "Zoom, a Silicon Valley-based company, appears to own three companies in China through which at least 700 employees are paid to develop Zoom’s software. This arrangement is ostensibly an effort at labor arbitrage: Zoom can avoid paying US wages while selling to US customers, thus increasing their profit margin. However, this arrangement may make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities." https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto...

nilkn 6y ago
So Zoom is essentially a Chinese company with a formal outer shell in the US and 81% of its revenue coming from North America?
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  That's an excellent business model.
  - sct202 6y ago
    It's basically what a lot of consumer goods companies are now. All the products are made and mostly designed in China, and then the US HQ does all the sales, marketing, and funneling product requirements back to China.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - inetknght 6y ago
      > and funneling product requirements I don't think the funneling stops at product requirements.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6y ago

zkid18 6y ago

What’s wrong with having R&D in China? The talent market is attractive and assuming Zoom founder is Chinese it seems more reasonable in some point compare to opening another office in US. Lots of big tech companies has strong R&D presence in China like MSFT, GOOGL. Btw, I might be wrong but CCP banned Zoom about half a year ago.