Drew Houston, the CEO of digital-storage service Dropbox, didn’t merely refuse to sell his company to the famously determined Steve Jobs in 2009, said Victoria Barret in Forbes. He refused Jobs’s nine-figure offer. Even then, Houston knew he had one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched companies, and it’s only gotten better in the two years since. Dropbox, which gives people access to their files from any device, has had a “stunning ascent.” Its users have tripled in the last year, to 50 million, with “another joining every second.” Revenue is projected to hit $240 million this year even though 19 out of 20 users pay nothing. Little wonder, then, that the company recently became a verb (“Dropbox me”) and landed $250 million in venture funding to expand.
Houston, 28, came up with the idea for Dropbox when he forgot to bring a USB stick on a long bus trip, said Jennifer Saba in Reuters.com. He is determined to stay independent and isn’t concerned about competition from Apple’s iCloud. “We were not the first or the 10th or the 100th company to have this idea,” says Houston. But “if it were easy to build, someone would have built it already.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Making a police state out of the liberal university'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
8 looming climate tipping points that imperil our planetThe Explainer New reports detail the thresholds we may be close to crossing
-
Try 6 free issues of The Week JuniorSpark your child's curiosity with The Week Junior - the award-winning current affairs magazine for 8-14s.
-
Issue of the week: Yahoo’s ban on working from homefeature There’s a “painful irony” in Yahoo’s decision to make all its employees come to the office to work.
-
Issue of the week: Another big airline merger
feature The merger of American Airlines and US Airways will be the fourth between major U.S. airlines in five years.
-
Issue of the week: Feds’ fraud suit against S&P
feature The Justice Department charged S&P with defrauding investors by issuing mortgage security ratings it knew to be misleading.
-
Issue of the week: Why investors are worried about Apple
feature Some investors worry that the company lacks the “passion and innovation that made it so extraordinary for so long.”
-
Issue of the week: Does Google play fair?
feature The Federal Trade Commission cleared Google of accusations that it skews search results to its favor.
-
Issue of the week: The Fed targets unemployment
feature By making public its desire to lower unemployment, the Fed hopes to inspire investors “to behave in ways that help bring that about.”
-
Issue of the week: Is Apple coming home?
feature Apple's CEO said the company would spend $100 million next year to produce a Mac model in the U.S.
-
Issue of the week: Gunning for a hedge fund mogul
feature The feds are finally closing in on legendary hedge fund boss Steven Cohen.