Dropbox isn’t necessarily the sexiest tech tool in the world, but it is a critically important tool for more than 500 million people.
The company launched back in 2007 and founder and CEO Drew Houston has spent the last decade growing Dropbox to the behemoth it is today.
During that time, Houston has had to make some tough decisions.
A few years ago, Houston decided to move the Dropbox infrastructure off of AWS. In 2014, Houston chose to raise $500 million in debt financing to keep up pace with Box, which was considering an IPO at the time. And in March 2017, Dropbox took another $600 million in debt financing from JP Morgan.
Houston also reportedly turned down a nine-figure acquisition offer from Apple.
All the while, Houston led Dropbox to be cash-flow positive and grew the company to see a $1 billion revenue run rate as of last year.
And, of course, we can’t forget the decision to go public early this year.
Dropbox is now one of the biggest tech companies in the world, with 1,800 employees across 12 global offices.
Interestingly, Houston first told his story to a TechCrunch audience at TC50 in 2008 as part of the Startup Battlefield.
At Disrupt SF in September, we’re excited to sit down with Houston to discuss his journey thus far, the process of going public, and the future of Dropbox.
The show runs from September 5 to Septmeber 7, and for the next week, our super early bird tickets are still available.
