When people say “Zoom changed communication,” they’re usually pointing at the app layer.

The deeper shift happened earlier: voice moving from circuit-switched phone lines to internet packets.

According to the U.S. Patent Office, Marian Rogers Croak pioneered Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies and holds more than 200 patents. That work helped make large-scale, reliable internet calling practical.

In 2022, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for pioneering VoIP.

Modern platforms like Zoom Video Communications run on that foundation: voice converted to data, routed across IP networks, reconstructed in real time.

She didn’t build Zoom.
She helped build the infrastructure that made Zoom possible.

Sometimes the most consequential innovation isn’t the interface. It's the plumbing.