Drew Houston—CEO & Co-Founder of Dropbox | Internet Entrepreneur

Drew Houston—CEO & Co-Founder of Dropbox | Internet Entrepreneur

Drew Houston is an American Internet Entrepreneur, who co-founded Dropbox and owns 25% of the company's interests. He holds the largest individual shares of Dropbox. He serves as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dropbox, an online backup and storage service. He held 24.4% voting power in the company before filling for IPO in February 2018. As of May 2019, Forbes estimated his net worth of $2.2 billion. Dropbox has received a five star rating in the 2017 Electronic Frontier Foundation in "Protecting Your Data From Government Requests" report. Today, it has more than 500 million users.

Drew Houston- Biography

Name Andrew W. Houston
Born 4 March, 1983
Birthpalce Acton, Massachusetts, U.S
Age 37 (2020)
Nationality American
Citizenship United States
Education Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Profession Internet Entrepreneur
Position Co-founder & CEO, Dropbox
Net worth $2.46 billion (2020)
Father Ken Houston
Mother Cecily Houston
Marital Status Unmarried

Drew Houston- Personal Life
Drew Houston- Education
Drew Houston- Professional Life
Drew Houston- Founder of Accolade
Drew Houston- CEO of Dropbox
Drew Houston- Business Idea
Drew Houston- Honors & Awards
Drew Houston- FAQ's
Drew Houston- Conclusion

Drew Houston- Personal Life

Drew was born in Acton, Massachusetts in 1983. He was born to Ken and Cecily Houston. He currently resides in San Francisco, California. He learnt coding when he was just 5 years old. He worked at a industrial robotics startup at the tender age of 15. He has endorsed Hillary Clinton at the 2016 United States presidential election.

Drew Houston | Founder, Dropbox

Drew Houston- Education

Drew pursued his elementary studies from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in the 1990s. In January 2006, he completed Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he has been a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and Entrepreneurs Club.

Drew Houston- Professional Life

Drew founded Accolade, a SAT prep company while studying in MIT. He took a year off in his junior year, for employment and finished a term early. He also met Adam and Arash Ferdowsi at MIT, who later helped him in establishing Dropbox.

Prior to the establishment of Dropbox, he worked on a number of other startups including, Bit9 and Hubspot. He worked as a Software Engineer at Bit9, Inc. from January 2006 to May 2007. He was the technical lead for a wreath of interesting Windows internals-related projects for Bit9's application whitelisting product.

At age 24, he founded Dropbox with Arash Ferdowsi in January, 2007. He also joined the Board of Directors of Facebook in February 2020, by replacing Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who left the position in May 2019. He is the Co-founder of technology lobbying organization FWD.us., launched in April 2013. It aimed at campaigning for immigration reforms and improvements to education.

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Drew Houston- Founder of Accolade

Accolade Logo

Drew founded Accolade, a bootstrapped online SAT prep company while studying in college. He asserted it as swiftly profitable but, most importantly, it was a great introduction into the world of startups. He founded the company on 1 May, 2004 and served until August 2007.

He established the company with the help of his former MIT teacher, Andrew Crick. The firm aimed at working on the field of e-learning, education and tutoring. However, he closed the company on January 2008 to work for Bit9 and eventually to establish Dropbox.

Drew Houston- CEO of Dropbox

Dropbox Logo

Drew is the Co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. He founded the company in 2007 with his MIT batch-mate, Arash Ferdowsi, who is today the Co-founder and CTO of Dropbox. It is the fastest growing online storage company, with a valuation of $8 billion with 200 million users.

They established their startup firm with initial funding from seed accelerator Y Combinator. Dropbox is a file hosting service that provides cloud storage, personal cloud, file synchronization and client software.

The application software of Dropbox is blocked in China since 2014. There have been controversies for issues including security breaches and privacy concerns.

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Drew Houston- Business Idea

Drew is reminiscent of when and how his mind struck to offer cloud and back up services through Dropbox. It was when he left his thumb drive on a bus and was frustrated with the incident. He started thinking of a solution by variably writing down a code with no idea of what he was going to build.

He struggled a lot while explaining the investors the concept of Dropbox. He then thought of creating a video that would explain the work of Dropbox. Thus, a 3-minute demonstration video was released which thoroughly explained its structure and work within few minutes.

Dropbox was publicly launched in 2008 and grew very fast with 100,000 users that resulted with their great marketing tactics like viral demonstration videos and referral programs.

In 2011, Steve Jobs offered him to buy Dropbox. Though Steve was his inspiration, still he refused the offer. Steve then asserted that Apple would come after their market and push them out.

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Drew Houston- Honors & Awards

  • Business Week named him as one of the "most promising players aged 30 and under"
  • His company, Dropbox has been touted as Y Combinator's most successful investment till date.
  • He was named among the top 30 under-30 entrepreneurs by inc.com
  • Dropbox was declared as one of the 20 best startups of Silicon Valley.

Drew Houston- FAQ's

Is Dropbox free to use?

With Dropbox Basic, it's easy to get to your files from multiple devices—computers, phones, and tablets—for free.

Which is better Google Drive or Dropbox?

If your primary use for Google Drive or Dropbox is free storage, Google Drive is the clear winner. Google Drive offers 15 GB of free storage, while Dropbox only gives you 2 GB. However, you can get an extra 500 MB of storage space for every friend you refer to Dropbox, for a maximum of 19 GB of free storage space.

What are the disadvantages of Dropbox?

Dropbox, unfortunately, fails to provide users with the latest technology for searches. The biggest letdown is the lack of metadata search functionality. Metadata is information about a file, such as a date it was created. A cloud storage system depends on being able to store large amounts of data and files.

Who is the CEO of Dropbox?

Drew Houston - Founder & CEO - Dropbox

How much of Dropbox does Drew Houston own?

Houston and Ferdowsi co-founded Dropbox in 2007. Houston currently is CEO and 25% owner of Dropbox.

Why was Drew Houston successful?

Drew Houston founded online file-sharing service Dropbox seven years ago. The firm is now estimated to be worth about $10bn (£5.9bn). But it was not an overnight success, and he had several failed ventures along the way.

How much is Drew Houston Worth?

200 crores USD (2021)

Drew Houston- Conclusion

Dropbox is a tech company founded by Drew Houston, that offers a cloud-based collaboration platform. He is the CEO of Dropbox which he developed alongside co-founder Arash Ferdowsi. Before founding Dropbox, Drew founded web-based SAT prep company Accolade and prior to that he worked as a software engineer for Bit9. He has a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Drew is also the co-founder of the technology lobbying organization FWD.us.

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