Andrew W. Houston (; born March 4, 1983) is an American Internet entrepreneur, and the co-founder and CEO of

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...

, an online backup and storage service. According to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', his net worth is about $2.2 billion. Houston held 24.4 percent voting power in Dropbox before filing for IPO in February 2018.

Early life

Houston was born in

Acton, Massachusetts Acton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, approximately west-northwest of Boston along Massachusetts Route 2 west of Concord and about southwest of Lowell. The population was 24,021 in April 2020, according to the Unite ...

in 1983. He attended

Acton-Boxborough Regional High School Acton-Boxborough Regional High School (ABRHS) is an open-enrollment high school in Acton, Massachusetts, United States. A part of the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, it serves the Massachusetts towns of Acton and Boxborough and has s ...

in the 1990s. He later graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT), where he was a member of the

Phi Delta Theta Phi Delta Theta (), commonly known as Phi Delt, is an international secret and social fraternity founded at Miami University in 1848 and headquartered in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, along with Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Chi form the Miami Triad ...

fraternity. It was there that he met

Arash Ferdowsi Arash Ferdowsi ( fa, آرش فردوسی, born October 7, 1985) is an Iranian-American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Dropbox. Early life and education Ferdowsi was born in Overland Park, Kansas, United States on 7 October 19 ...

who would later go on to be co-founder and CTO of

. During his time in college, Houston co-founded a SAT prep company.

Career

Houston and Ferdowsi co-founded Dropbox in 2007. Houston currently is CEO and 25% owner of Dropbox. In February 2020, Houston joined the board of directors of

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, replacing

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

CEO

Reed Hastings Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. (born October 8, 1960) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder, chairman, and co-chief executive officer (CEO) of Netflix, and sits on a number of boards and non-profit organizations. A former member ...

, who left in May 2019.

Accolades

Houston was named one of the "most promising players aged 30 and under" by Business Week, and Dropbox has been touted as

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

's most successful investment to date. Houston was also named among the top 30 under-30 entrepreneurs by inc.com, and Dropbox has been called one of the 20 best startups of

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

. In June 2013, MIT invited Houston to serve as speaker at its annual commencement ceremonies. In his remarks, Houston gave this advice:

Personal life

Houston lives in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. In April 2013, a lobbying group called

FWD.us FWD.us is a 501(c)(4) pro-immigration lobbying group based in the United States that advocates for prison reform, status for undocumented immigrants, particularly for DACA recipients, and higher levels of immigration visas, particularly for H-1 ...

(aimed at lobbying for

immigration reform Immigration reform is change to the current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, ''reform'' means "to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses". In the political sense, "immigration ...

and improvements to education) was launched, with Houston listed as one of the founders. In 2016, he endorsed

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

in the

2016 United States presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Houston, Drew 1983 births Living people American computer businesspeople American computer scientists Businesspeople from Massachusetts Businesspeople in information technology MIT School of Engineering alumni American technology company founders American technology chief executives Y Combinator people American billionaires People from Acton, Massachusetts Directors of Facebook