Drew Houston

Before working on Dropbox, Houston co-founded AccoladeAccolade, an online SAT prep company and worked there from April 2004 to August 2007. He was a software engineer at Bit9, Inc. , a cybersecurity company from January 2006 to May 2007.

In 2006, he came up with the idea of Dropbox, a remote storage that can be accessed online. After four months of building and testing he flew to San Francisco to pitch his idea to Paul Graham of Y Combinator. After a not so successful meeting, Graham insisted that he have a cofounder before pitching the idea. Drew was under pressure, he had only two weeks to find someone he trusted enough to start his company with. He went back to MIT. Moving very quickly Mr Houston managed - after a chat lasting just two hours - to persuade a 22-year-old student called Arash FerdowsiArash Ferdowsi to quit university and join him. Mr Ferdowsi was a friend of a friend, but he and Mr Houston had never met before.

Andrew Houston was born in Acton, Massachusetts on 4 March 1983. He is the son of Cecily and Ken Houston. He went to Acton-Boxborough Regional High School. He took Bachelor of Science in Computer ScienceComputer Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and graduated in 2006.