# Linda Lian

> Linda Lian is the Seattle-based co-founder and CEO of Common Room, the buyer-intelligence company acquired by Zoom in July 2026. An immigrant from China who grew up in the Seattle area, studied history and literature at Harvard, and worked across finance, venture capital, and AWS product marketing, she turned a firsthand frustration with fragmented customer signals into software designed to help revenue teams understand the people behind every opportunity.

- **Role:** CEO and Co-founder of Common Room; joined Zoom with the Common Room team in July 2026
- **Organizations:** Common Room, Zoom, Amazon Web Services, Madrona Venture Group, Lookout, Morgan Stanley
- **Education:** History and literature, Harvard University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Common Room in 2020 and recruited three co-founders with complementary design and engineering backgrounds., Raised $52.9 million across Common Room’s seed, Series A and Series B rounds by 2021., Led Common Room from a community-intelligence concept into an AI-native buyer-intelligence platform used by enterprise go-to-market teams.

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Worked as an analyst at Morgan Stanley and later at mobile-security company Lookout.
- **2016** — Worked as an investor at Madrona Venture Group, studying product-led growth, developer services and commercial open source.
- **2017** — Joined Amazon and later led product marketing for serverless computing at AWS.
- **2020** — Co-founded Common Room with Francis Luu, Viraj Mody and Tom Kleinpeter.
- **2021** — Common Room emerged from stealth after raising $52 million across seed, Series A and Series B financing.
- **2022** — Common Room announced general availability on March 31.
- **2023-2025** — Led Common Room’s evolution from community intelligence toward customer and buyer intelligence for go-to-market teams.
- **2026** — Zoom completed its acquisition of Common Room in July and welcomed Lian and the Common Room team.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Common Room in 2020 and recruited three co-founders with complementary design and engineering backgrounds.
- Raised $52.9 million across Common Room’s seed, Series A and Series B rounds by 2021.
- Led Common Room from a community-intelligence concept into an AI-native buyer-intelligence platform used by enterprise go-to-market teams.
- Guided Common Room through its July 2026 acquisition by Zoom.
- Helped articulate community-led growth and signal-based selling through essays, podcasts and conference appearances.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Zoom completed its acquisition of Common Room and welcomed Linda Lian and the Common Room team to Zoom.
- **2025-01** — Appeared on Fin Capital’s GTM Navigator to discuss signal-based selling, RevOps, AI and customer intelligence.
- **2024-04** — Appeared on the GTMnow podcast to discuss customer intelligence, leadership and finding co-founders.

## Links

- Website: https://www.commonroom.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindamlian
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/LindaMLian

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/linda-lian
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-26