“I tell our team, ‘Guys, you know, there’s no way to balance. Work is life, life is work,” Yuan said in a recent episode of the Grit podcast, as cited by Fortune. Despite his intense professional focus, he added: “Whenever there’s a conflict, guess what? Family first. That’s it.”

Yuan, 55, who has three Gen Z children, acknowledged that the platform he built has helped reshape the modern workplace by enabling remote work from nearly anywhere. But that convenience, he said, has come at a cost.

He admitted he has no hobbies, devoting all his time to “family and Zoom.” The blurred boundary between work and personal life, he said, is now a reality for many.

Still, Yuan sees a potential solution in artificial intelligence. He said that in the future, people may rely on their advanced AI-powered digital “twins” to handle routine tasks, potentially reducing the need for a traditional five-day workweek.

“Imagine down the road, let’s say we have very mature AI technology. Do we really need to work for five days a week? Maybe three days, maybe two days.”

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has expressed similar views, predicting that humans may no longer be needed for “most things,” which could lead to shorter workweeks, CNBC reported. In an appearance on “The Tonight Show” earlier this year, he said: “What will jobs be like? Should we just work, like, two or three days a week?”

Yuan, who was born in China, had his U.S. visa application rejected eight times before finally arriving in Silicon Valley in 1997. He founded Zoom in 2011, and the company went public in 2019 with an initial valuation of US$9.2 billion.

Zoom’s user base surged from 10 million to 350 million during the height of the Covid pandemic, and by late 2020, its market capitalization peaked at $160 billion. But with many companies now pushing for a return to the office, Zoom’s market cap has since fallen to around $20 billion.

Yuan’s current net worth is estimated at $4.6 billion, placing him among the wealthiest Asian Americans in the tech industry.