How Dropbox Beat Big Tech in the Cloud Wars
Grit25 Aug 2025

How Dropbox Beat Big Tech in the Cloud Wars

How do you win when your competitors are the biggest companies in the world?


This week on Grit, Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston retraces the path from a bus-stop prototype to competing head-on with Google, Apple, and Microsoft.


He explains why grit is “learning to run toward discomfort,” and the moments he realized founders keep going “for the love of the game.”


Guest: Drew Houston, Co-Founder & CEO of Dropbox


Chapters:

00:00 Trailer
00:52 Introduction
01:35 Towards full autonomy
16:20 Coming back to school
21:45 Golden ticket to California
25:23 No one’s born a CEO
28:15 Y Combinator and a co-founder
37:53 The craft of being a great CEO
53:41 Metabolizing the stress
1:10:14 Tactical advices and frameworks
1:27:48 Who Dropbox is hiring
1:29:35 What “grit” means to Drew
1:32:10 Outro


Links:

Connect with Drew

Connect with Joubin


Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(293)

Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood

Data Centers in Orbit by 2028: Baiju Bhatt on His Plans After Robinhood

What kind of founder walks away from a multi-billion-dollar fintech company to start building rockets?Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood, joins Joubin Mirzadegan to talk about life after one of the ...

24 Aug 1h 12min

Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel

Booking.com CEO on AI and the Future of Travel

"Our mission is to make it easier for everybody to experience the world."From the dot-com crash to AI, Glenn Fogel has spent nearly three decades helping Booking Holdings evolve through every major te...

10 Aug 50min

Ex-Twitter CEO on Why AI Needs a New Internet | Parag Agrawal

Ex-Twitter CEO on Why AI Needs a New Internet | Parag Agrawal

"The answer to every problem is a model."Parag Agrawal shares the ideas behind Parallel: products that continuously learn, and teams designed around versatile problem solvers.He also shares why he bui...

27 Jul 1h 1min

The Sales Framework Every Founder Needs | Mark Roberge

The Sales Framework Every Founder Needs | Mark Roberge

"There's 20 fires going on at every moment in the office and you have enough water to put out four."Mark Roberge shares what it takes to build and scale a company, from finding product-market fit to k...

13 Jul 1h 22min

Airwallex's Jack Zhang on Fintech, Failure, and Growth

Airwallex's Jack Zhang on Fintech, Failure, and Growth

In 2020, Airwallex lost nearly half its revenue overnight. Today it's worth $11 billion.Jack Zhang reflects on the decisions that kept the company alive, raising capital during uncertainty, and leadin...

29 Jun 1h 11min

Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith

Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith

AI may change software overnight, but company building still takes time.Ryan Smith explains why, despite the pace of AI, “the race is going to be way longer than anyone thinks.”He reflects on Qualtric...

15 Jun 1h 12min

What It Takes to Build Software for 171,000+ Restaurants | Aman Narang

What It Takes to Build Software for 171,000+ Restaurants | Aman Narang

Great software companies often come from understanding pain points at a very deep level.On Grit, Aman Narang shares how Toast built trust with 171,000+ restaurant operators by helping restaurants mana...

1 Jun 1h 17min

What It Takes to Build a Generational Company | Anduril’s Trae Stephens

What It Takes to Build a Generational Company | Anduril’s Trae Stephens

Founder quality becomes more important as startups become easier to build.Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril and partner at Founders Fund, has spent years backing founders with strong conviction, in...

18 Mai 56min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
rss-skravla-gar
rss-pa-konto
finansredaksjonen
pengepodden-2
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
utbytte
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
lederpodden
rss-orjasater
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
liberal-halvtime
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
okonomiamatorene