In a conversation with WIRED UK’s David Rowan on stage at the DLD Conference in Germany, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston acknowledged that he did in fact have a “great meeting” with the late Steve Jobs in 2009.
Houston said about the get-together that Jobs had heard of them and asked to meet with him. Even though he was generally gracious, Houston said, Jobs expressed that he felt Dropbox was more of a feature than a product or business and gave him a “bit of a hard time” about that.
Jobs went on to float an eventual acquisition by Apple, but Houston said he did not name a price, at least not at the time. Forbes reported earlier that Dropbox ended up turning down a “nine-digit acquisition offer” from Apple.
Dropbox now has 50 million+ users saving billions of files daily, and is valued at $4 billion.
Not bad for a company that one of the world’s most brilliant minds ever once called a feature.
Also check out our Founder Stories series featuring Houston:
On Pitching Dropbox: “Tom Cruise In Minority Report Is Not Carrying Around A Thumb Drive”
Drew Houston: “Dropbox Users Save A Billion Files Every Three Days”
How Dropbox Got Its First 10 Million Users
Houston: “In 18 Months, You Are Going To See Little Dropbox Buttons Everywhere”