Masters of Scale

Take on Goliath — and win, w/Dropbox's Drew Houston

Sep 5, 2019

Drew Houston, Co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, shares his journey of competing against tech giants like Google and Apple with his nimble cloud storage solution. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing unique strengths in a crowded market and highlights innovative hiring practices. Drew explains how Dropbox's referral program propelled user growth and discusses the balance between ambition and caution when navigating startup challenges. With engaging anecdotes about friendly rivalries and team dynamics, he illustrates how agility and strategic thinking can lead to success.

42:20

Episode guests

Drew Houston

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

1min

Battle Royale in the Digital Arena

2min

Recognizing Competitive Advantages in Hiring

2min

Underdogs in Tech: Competing with Giants

16min

Empowering Leadership and Dynamic Team Building

3min

Scaling Dropbox: The Power of Referrals

4min

Navigating Startup Challenges and Competition

15min

Conquering Goliath: Strategic Advantages and Team Dynamics

4min

When Drew Houston founded Dropbox, he knew he faced some fierce competition (hello, Google, Apple and Microsoft). But he didn’t back down. Why? Because he believed in his product, and he knew he had an advantage those big, cumbersome competitors could never exploit: Dropbox was lean, focused and fast. Hear how he outmaneuvered the big dogs – and what's next for Dropbox.

Drew Houston's reading list! Books mentioned in this episode:

Competing Against Luck, by Clay Christensen and Karen Dillon

The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker

The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz

Becoming Steve Jobs, by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, by James Wallace and Jim Erickson

Founders at Work, by Jessica Livingston

High Output Management, by Andy Grove

Music: "Exciting Trailer" by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.com/drew-houston-how-to-take-on-goliaths-and-win/

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