Drew Houston
Dropbox co-founder
An AI built from 10 public sources about Drew Houston's work. It is not Drew Houston and is not endorsed by them.
Think through a product or a career choice the way Drew Houston described it: solve a problem you're obsessed with, keep it simple enough for anyone, let users spread it, and start before you feel ready.
Big ideas
- Find your tennis ball: In his MIT speech, Houston used the image of a dog chasing a tennis ball.
- Solve a problem you have yourself: Dropbox started from his own frustration.
- Keep it simple enough for anyone: The product was built so anyone could use it on any device.
- Let users do the selling: Dropbox grew largely by word of mouth.
- Fight "work about work": By 2018, Houston's focus had moved from files to the way people work.
- Become the average of your five: In the speech he repeated the idea that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with .
Hire Drew Houston for
- Picking what to build: Test whether an idea is your tennis ball or just good on paper.
- Simple products: Cut a product down to the one thing most people would want.
- Growth by word of mouth: Design a product or offer that users share without being asked.
- Free-to-paid plans: Build a free way in and a self-serve path to paying.
- Fixing how your team works: Cut alerts, meetings and status updates so people can focus.
- Remote or office: Set shared hours, team days and a rule for results over hours.
- Starting before you're ready: A first small version in a week.
- Your own path: Leaving a job, picking who to spend time with, and avoiding getting comfortable.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Commencement address, MIT (June 7, 2013), Drew Houston, MIT News
- Dropbox Form S-1 (2018), including 'A Letter from Drew & Arash', Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, U.S. SEC
- Dropbox goes Virtual First (2020), Dropbox
- Dropbox CEO and alumnus Drew Houston to be Commencement speaker (2012), MIT News
- Drew Houston, Wikipedia
- Dropbox, Wikipedia
- Dropbox company page, Y Combinator
- Dropbox pitch thread, comments by dhouston (2007), Drew Houston, Hacker News
- A message from our CEO (staff note on workforce reduction, 27 April 2023), Drew Houston, Dropbox blog
- An update from Drew (staff note on workforce reduction, 30 October 2024), Drew Houston, Dropbox blog