Drew Houston is one of the few founders in the technology world who has been able to masterfully navigate the journey from MIT hacker to the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company. Houston and his team have been able to turn file-sharing company Dropbox into a platform used by more than 150 million people across the globe in just six years. Which is why we are incredibly excited to announce that Houston will be joining us for an on stage interview at Disrupt SF.
Houston founded file-hosting giant Dropbox with Arash Ferdowsi at Y Combinator in 2007, with Sequoia Capital joining as one of the company’s first investors. At last count, Dropbox was valued at $4 billion. While Dropbox has already grown dramatically over the past few years, it’s clear that Houston and Ferdowsi have larger ambitions, including possibly taking Dropbox public in the not-too-distant future.
This will be Houston’s first time on the Disrupt stage since launching Dropbox at TC50 in 2008. He joins other notable founders speaking at Disrupt such as Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel and Dick Costolo, Twitter’s CEO and co-founder of FeedBurner. More speakers are set to be announced in the coming weeks leading up to Disrupt.
We say this every year, and every post, but this Disrupt is shaping up to be the best yet. We hope you can join us.
Disrupt SF takes over The San Francisco Design Concourse from September 7 to 11. Tickets are currently on sale here and available with a $1,000 discount if purchased by August 19th. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here.
Houston and Sequoia Capital partner Bryan Schreier joined us in the TechCrunch TV studio for a special three-part series on how Houston and Schreier work together on recruiting, his growing as a CEO, and building the company.
The first part of this series was focused on recruiting and retaining talent, and in the second part of the series, Houston talks about his journey and how he has changed as an entrepreneur and individual.
In this third, and final segment, Houston and Schreier talk about Dropbox’s evolution from a startup to file-hosting giant that is used by 95 percent of the Fortune 500.
Drew Houston
Dropbox
Founder & CEO
Drew Houston is CEO and Co-Founder of Dropbox, and has led Dropbox’s growth from a simple idea to a service used by millions around the world.
Before founding Dropbox, Drew received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT in 2006. He took a quick leave from school to form Accolade, an online SAT prep startup, and also worked as a software engineer at various startups.
After graduating, Drew was endlessly frustrated by carrying USB drives and emailing himself files. In early 2007, he teamed up with fellow MIT student Arash Ferdowsi and the two began working on the project that would eventually become Dropbox.
In 2012, Drew was named to MIT Technology Review’s TR35 list honoring the world’s top innovators under 35. He was also included in Fortune’s “40 Under 40.”