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Drew Houston

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118
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2018-08-27
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2018-08-27
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  1. “Really taught me what a good engineer looks like. And it's both inspiring in terms of watching all these people who are super capable, but then also you get jealous and you're like, oh, I want to be that good. And so you want to harness that kind of negative energy into pushing yourself to work harder. And that's true, whether it's at school or being in Y Combinator with other founders, like friendly competition there or with my friends who are starting companies, being in San Francisco, all of those contributed massively to us making it. And then finally, 30,000 is really about everybody lives on average, humans live on average for 30,000 days. At first, I was like, okay, yes, this is like a clinical truth, not terribly interesting, because I think I just moved to San Francisco, and I was just like, I couldn't sleep. So I was just like on the internet.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “It was just bizarre. It was just funny. And so I was like, what you want is to have that ridiculous expression on your face and just kind of be so obsessed with something that you just don't care about anything else. Not overdo it. But the point is find something that not just passionate about, but that just that you can become obsessed with and just really love and something you would do even if you weren't your job. Then the circle concept is really there's a saying by a guy named Jim Rohan that you're an average of the five people you spend the most time with and I found that to be super true. And the upshot is like choose wisely. So whether it's the literal five people you spend the most time with or just the environment you're in. So being going to a or just find an environment that will pull the best out of you. And so and I think that's been true for me going to MIT.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Overlaps with something the world really needs or values. But like don't settle. Find something, the tennis ball is, sorry, where does the tennis ball come from? I had this really lazy fat dog growing up. Who would, but when you showed her food or you showed her tennis ball, she would be, she would just go nuts. And so you throw a tennis ball for it. She was just like watching a ham running on twigs or something.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Sure. So I did the commencement speech for MIT back in 2013. And the whole premise was I'm like, all right, God, I'm 30. I'm like, can I wait 20 years? I'll say something like way more insightful then. But I'm like, all right, well, the prompt I came up was like, all right, what do I wish I had known? What would I tell my 23-year-old self? If I could sort of send a cheat sheet back in time, what would it have on it? And what I would put on that little cheat sheet is, as you said, a tennis ball, a circle, and the number 30,000. So the tennis ball is really about finding that thing you can become obsessed with. And so when I think about Dropbox or even just other side projects like the poker bot, like I am both most productive and happiest and most successful when all those things line up or when the thing you're obsessed with.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Well, so it was through my co-founder, but then Arash was introduced to it through a guy named Gentry, who is the founder of Mailbox who worked with us for a while. So call it three, four years ago. And then Rash is like, you're going to love this. It's great. And I'm like, it sounds super weird. But he was right. So it's been super helpful.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “But it's been very helpful both to do individually and with your team because what you learn is like, okay, here are my blind spots. I'm an Enneagram 7. These are totally textbook strengths and weaknesses of a seven. They like new things. They're comfortable in chaos. But then they can become distracted and unreliable. Conflict avoid, things like that. So just knowing, you always, one way or another, you always want to have an accurate map of what do you need to work on.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “And I think just self-warning, trying to understand yourself on all kinds of different dimensions is really valuable. And I talked about the Enneagram in your book. It's sort of like, I would call it like a useful Myers-Briggs. So most people are familiar with Myers-Briggs. It's a personality typing system, but then you read it and it's like reading a personality quiz on the internet. You remember you had some letters and there's like some stuff, but you don't actually do anything with it. I found Enneagram to be similar in terms of there are a limited number of personality types, but it's much more a theory about what fundamentally motivates people, what demotivates them. I know we don't have a ton of time. So I just say, check it out. Enneagram is very valuable. I do it. I was super skeptical. I was like, this sounds like a cult. And it kind of is.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “You're not paying enough attention to the things that are important. I'm like, okay. And he's like, and you suck at planning. People are confused about what to do. And I'm like, okay. And then he's like, look, you're good with people and you like people to be happy so you avoid conflict. You are creative. You like new ideas. So you don't pay attention to the routine stuff. You're comfortable in chaos, so you don't plan. These strengths are all their own weaknesses and disguise. And there's no one who's like 10 out of 10 on everything. And that's why. So, you know, there's a lot of different philosophies on what you do with the feedback and do you play more to your strengths? I think you need at least get your weaknesses to a point where they're not destroying the company. But generally you want to play to your strengths. And that's one of the key effective executive tenets. But other than that,”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “He's like, you are really conflict avoidant. You don't make hard people decisions. People don't know what you do, where they stand. I'm like, okay. You're unreliable. You drop balls.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “But I went through that, I just remember my first coaching experience briefly, I sit you down, they're like, first page is usually like, here are your strengths. And I'm like, okay. He's like, my coach was like, you really care about people. You love building great relationships. And I'm like, yep, okay, yeah, that sounds good. He's like, You're really comfortable in chaos. It doesn't bother you that this stuff is so crazy. I'm like, yep. It's like, okay, And then flip to the next page. All right, now it's never weaknesses, it's development areas.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Is that fair to say? Yep. Well, you get all this feedback from all everybody you are closely working with. So it's kind of overwhelming because you get a lot of it. And it's not all good. And actually, to this day, opening those documents and reading all the 360 feedback is one of the most painful human experiences you can have. Maybe that's a little hyperbolic, but it's not fun. It's at least not fun. It's not something that I look forward to, but it's important. So because you need to know, it's much better to just know and be able to do something about it. Ben's been a great friend and mentor, and he's like, he was reflecting, he told me a quote that one of his mentors told him, which is that God gave us all weaknesses It's a blessing to find out about them.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “I've had different ones over time. And really, and like I go through that experience, I'm like, I'll give this a shot. Some of my friends have had positively about it. But it's, the first part, I remember my first coaching experience and they do the 360 and then you sit down, you do your review of your results.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “And then I think self-awareness, there's probably a lot more we could talk about how to metabolize stress and avoid burnout. But I think taking care of the basics, like having a good foundation and setting healthy boundaries is pretty important and having a sustainable workload. The self-awareness is pretty important. And being willing to shine a hard light on yourself and embracing that. So for me, coaching has been super helpful.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Because just think about that. That has a ceiling in terms of how much of an advantage that can give you. Like, yes, you want to work hard. If your only advantage is like being able to work 20% more hours than someone who's merely very committed, then you're not going to have outsized results. And so I think this meme that people, that successful people work 100-hour weeks or something is both false and super harmful. Most of the most successful people I know actually work, I mean, they have crunch times where they're super busy, but they otherwise have a work week that looks more normal than not. And so that was something I didn't realize when I was starting out. But the basics of sleep, eating well, self-care exercise, putting it on your calendar, not just wishful thinking and hoping it'll sort of happen in the spare moments. Like if you can't see these things on your calendar, if you can't see your gym time on the calendar, it doesn't exist.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm the best athlete by any stretch, but it's really important. You have to do enough so that you don't break down. And you got to figure out what that is for you. And I know that's something you really care about. The advice you have to offer your readers will be much better than whatever advice I have. But you need to do something, some kind of routine and stick to it. But just the basics of, you know, I think some of the dumbest advice that people get is not sleeping or wearing or just pursuing this idea that successful people somehow work 70, 80 hour weeks, and that's the norm. There are a number of problems with that. First, it's like usually not true. It's usually more of an indication the person's either lack of awareness about where they're spending their time or lack of effectiveness if they need, if their only tool in the shed is like work more hours. Right.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “Stress and avoid burnout. And for some reason, people just use the one tool of pushing themselves harder and then they break. And you wouldn't do that to your car. You wouldn't do that with a musical instrument. So why would you do that to yourself?”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “And I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I think I have a much better sense now. So I think the first thing is comfortable with being uncomfortable because, and you think about principles like Ray Dalio's book, he's like Pain plus Reflection equals progress. People love the progress part, or they love growth, but they don't love the pain part, and they don't bother to do the reflection part. So understanding that that is, and sort of zooming out and understanding, depersonalize it. It's like it's not really you. This is just the process of growth. It will be painful. Or think of your journey as more of an adventure rather than a final exam where you have to get everything right and you only got one shot. I think that's pretty important. And then second is, all right, you have to, now everybody likes the idea of growth and pushing yourself, but you also have to take care of yourself. You have to find ways to metabolize.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “But more on just like that, what do you do when you're like, oh my God, this is pretty uncomfortable. I've never done anything like this before. I might screw it up. So your instinct will to be to run away from that feeling. And what you need to learn to do is run towards it. Because that's just going to keep happening, keep happening. I'm like, you know, we're going to show up at this guy's house. I don't know. Maybe we'll get arrested. But we're going to do it. I don't think that's the best example. There are just so many things where it's like, you just got to kind of figure it out and keep going. And Ben, one of the great things from that Ben wrote in his book, the hard thing about hard things is the hardest part of being a CEO is managing your psychology”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “I hope they realize that I haven't really done this before. And like, oh, God, that million-dollar, it's great to kind of cash that check, but oh, man, they're going to be looking for that money back at some point. Like, what are we going to do? And so that's not, that wasn't there a lot of things going on in my head at the time. And then like, oh my God, I've never really built a successful company pour. I've never managed people really. You know, the idea of Dropbox being a hundred person company is like terrifying. This treadmill is just going to go faster and faster until I'm violently thrown off of it. How am I going to deal with that? And a lot of me also thought like, okay, well, I'll just build the company until it's successful enough or makes enough money where I just don't have to worry about money anymore. And then as soon as I get to that.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Right. Yeah, people are not. So first of all, I think you have to have a sense of like this is normal. Just don't take it too personally. That's the thing. You want to take it, you do want to receive the feedback and try to extract the kernel that's useful from it, but not feel obligated to accept the whole thing. I think more broadly You just have to Whether it's getting criticism or just a lot of the thing I think one of the harder things about running the company in general was I just remember being in the beginning being like oh my god like all right now we like Sequoia has decided to invest in our company against the odds now Sequoia has decided to invest they're writing us a check for a million dollars”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “What these people are missing, the key conclusion from that, that just because something has happened before, like has failed before, doesn't mean it will always fail in the future, can still fail. But that kind of conviction came from an understanding or a belief and a worldview and framework of like, all right, here's how I think business works or here's how to think about an idea like ours. But that said, So I think there's a how do you receive advice and how do you sort of develop first principles thinking, which we've talked about. But then that doesn't make it feel any better when people are like your idea sucks and you're going to fail.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “And that is true. And anybody who, that's like factually true. You can't debate that. But that would have been true for mobile. Every mobile thing before the iPhone or every mobile software company, every app was a total failure before the iPhone world changes. Suddenly, it's the right time. And so if you study history of technology or history business, you realize, okay, that argument is not in and of itself causal. What you want to answer is like, why is that incorrect? It's like, well, actually, there are a lot of good ideas that are bad ideas for a while because the timing is wrong, but then the timing becomes right because of some discontinuity in tech. And looks like the innovator's dilemma or others will illustrate that. And so if you really understand these, if you understand, that's why it's so important to build these mental models, because you were like, all right, this is my framework for how the world works. And I keep refining it.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “We're all correct. And that's why you also need to have enough thick skin to know when to be a little bit dismissive or not listen to everything. And part of what helps with that is having conviction. And conviction that comes from being able to think from first principles. And pay less attention to people's conclusions, the outputs of people's conclusions as much as the inputs into those conclusions. So what does that mean? Well, people said that, okay, Dropbox is not going to be successful because then people have tried it a million times”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “And then people are like, oh, when did you know it was a success? It's like, well, it was sort of a different point. It was like the goalpost for success kept successively moving back. So even just having a video was a big milestone and launching the private beta was a big milestone and there were a bunch of milestones. But so it was sort of a continuous process more than, oh, it's just one moment in time. But yeah, there were people who had very good arguments about why this wasn't going to be successful. And that's why I think You have to sort of have both thick skin and thin skin. Or you have to kind of get that balance right. Because if you just have ignore all of the feedback and dismiss it all, then you're probably going to have some kind of blind spot and you're going to miss some important information. So just because they came to that conclusion doesn't mean that there are”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “It's easy to say, like, oh, just ignore it all, but you kind of have to be balanced. So on the one hand, we did get encouraging feedback in the beginning. So people were like, drop, this is cool. I will use this. It sounds great. And I knew that I needed it. And then I wasn't like trying to create a billion dollar company. I was trying to just like solve a problem. And so I think setting your sites low in the beginning, ironically, can be helpful because you're not putting so much pressure on yourself. I was just like, look, if I show the cool thing, it'll be one of, this is just another side project and a number of side projects. And like, let me not suffocate it by putting all these crazy expectations on it. So I think that's pretty important.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “I was like, yeah, you're probably right. Like, I don't really see how we survive as, I mean, in 2007, I don't see how we kind of make it through to Mount Doom. That's our little plucky band of the two of us. And then invariably every investor we talk to would raise similar concerns. So the feedback was all pretty negative.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Yeah, so that was very early. I would say it was probably within the first year. And probably the most, well, I think what happens is you'll get, I mean, I just think even back to that first video that I put on Hacker News, a lot of the commentary was positive. People were like, I would use something like this. It's good. And it was really, and that was really encouraging. So on the one hand, half the Peanut Gallery is saying that. The other half is saying listing all these reasons why it's been tried before and won't work. And then even if it does work, like Microsoft, Google, everybody's going to kill us. And here's why it's never been a business. And here are all these other ones that have never succeeded. And the things I agreed with him.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Worth like multiple hundreds of millions of dollars today. But I think so many what you can take away from this is like, there's just no manual for that, right? You got to just kind of wing it. And there are a lot of things that are the equivalent. Even today, I'm just kind of getting in the zip car with a bottle of champagne and hoping for the best. And, you know, sometimes we'll get really good cards, sometimes you'll get really bad cards, but you just got to kind of roll with it. And so between finding a co-founder, getting the domain, each of those are definitely memorable points along the journey.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “Got on our high horse after that. And I mean, that was a comical whole experience. But eventually he's like, okay, okay, okay, there's no point to have this lawsuit. I'll give you guys, or I'll sell you guys the domain. I'm like, okay, well, like, we can offer you stock or cash. He's like, I'll just take cash. So we paid him 300 grand, got the domain, lived. I mean, that was such a, like sending that first email from Dropbox.com to Paul and Jessica was a huge triumph. But what's even, we offered him stock. That would have been at the seed round.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “But it is also illegal for someone to intentionally confuse your customer. So I can't just say that I can't sell paper towel or I can't sell like Kleenex with three E's to confuse people or whatever. So intentionally confusing consumers is a problem. And we had another whole Odyssey trying to get the Dropbox trademark, which that's not as interesting. But I'm like, we had a problem. We didn't actually have the registered trademark either. But he was now making money from infringing our common law trademark rights. And so I'm working with this crazy trademark and domain attorney. And so we sue him for trademark infringement. And so that got his attention. Which we would not have done. We weren't just trying to push him around. He was trying to profit off of confusing our customers.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “And so I'm just thinking of like, I'm like, what the hell are we going to do about this? Our investors think we're idiots for not changing the name. We're doing all these pointless branding exercises that Did not go well to try to find an alternate name. So I'm just like, oh my God, what are we going to do? And the answer was read the federal copyright code and trademark code. And I became kind of an expert in cyber trademark law, an armshare expert in this stuff. And it turns out you can't just get a domain from someone for no reason. Like you can't just be like, oh, you're not using it, so therefore it's mine anymore. You can be like, oh, you're not using it land, give it to me.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “Which was a problem because then we're like, oh my God, now this guy is like totally cashing in. It's basically, you go to Dropbox.com, it was basically AdWords for all of our competitors”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “So then this guy, and then there's just kind of nothing for a couple years or for a year. And then we launched, we launched Dropbox publicly. And then all these confused people start going to dropbox.com and presumably start trying to, they wanted to get into the beta. So this was later in the year. And so he starts getting all these emails from people, I think probably March 2008, who are looking to get into the Dropbox beta. And then he does, God, and I'll end the story in a reasonable amount of time, but we like, so then he kind of goes dark. He puts a privacy shield up on the domain, then puts up an Adwards landing page. So like dropbox.com, like there was a noise, it went from like a GoDaddy parking page to Google. AdSense for domains page.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “And then he's like, cool. It's interesting. I got to talk to a friend and why don't we touch base soon? And I'm like, great. It was like Friday. I'm like, it was like a Friday night, I think. And I'm like, we'll be back on Monday. And in the ride back going over the Berry Bridge, and I'm like, holy shit, we might actually be able to get this thing. This guy's been impenetrable and so difficult. We're both kind of in awe. And just like, this was such a positive thing. So we go back on Monday and he's just like, yep, thought about it, not interested, thanks by it. And we're like, are you kidding? Is this for real? I'm like, I'm like, where's this going to go? Are you going to bequeath this domain to your children? Like, what the hell? But he was just like totally wouldn't budge. And so that was a much sadder drive back.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “So this would be called hemorrhaging leverage. Although at the same time, the frameworks don't completely account for everything because if you don't actually help them understand why they should be interested and you hold all your cards to the vest, then nothing happens. And that's what we experienced over the last seven months. So, okay, so at least sketch out a case that a reasonable person would look at and be interested in.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “Getting the zip car and go to his house And it's like nine at night. I don't know. This seemed like a good idea at the time. So we show up. And then he was kind of, I think he was kind of shocked, kind of amused, like, lets us in. We start talking. We're like, hey, look, we're pretty serious about this thing we're doing. We'd love, you know, if it's true that you're not”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “Yeah, awesome. It worked about as well as you'd expect. So I'm like, well, since ZipCar and show up at someone's house, worked so well the first time, we're going to do it again. So it turned out the guy lived in Pleasanton. And he was an entrepreneur. Here's someone who's nearby who should be sympathetic to our cause, at least to some extent. And I'm like, how's that project going? Because there's obviously no project. And he's just kind of being difficult. And so I'm like, okay, god damn it. We get off the phone and I'm like, all right, Arash, let's just show up at this guy's house. Let's just see what happens. So jump in another Zimf car. We go to the, we go to the corner store and get their most expensive bottle of $20 champagne we could get.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “So we just lived with getdropox.com for a while. I tried to, you can sometimes look up who owns a domain and contact them. So I actually did. I managed to give the guy a call. And I'm like, hey, dropbox.com, are you using it? And the guy was like, yes, I'm using it for a project. I'm like, okay, well, do you have any interest in selling it or coming up with some kind of arrangement? He's like, no. I'm like, okay, cool. That's February 2007. And then we get distracted with the whole getting into YC, finding a co-founder, all that, doing YC. And then I moved to San Francisco in September. And I'm like, we really need to get this domain name. And unfortunately, Arash and I had totally fallen in love with it. So we weren't really, we kind of only had one plan.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “And then, so I'm like, in Photoshop trying to make a logo for folder anywhere. And I'm like, of course, probably the logo is like a literal folder or something totally inane. And then I start, and I'm like, and believe it or not, folderanewer.com was actually available. So I was the proud owner of folderanywear.com. Then I did a search and I found there's a company called Files Anywhere. And I was like, no, I can't name it folder anywhere. And so I'm on aim talking to one of my friends from high school. And I'm like, God, I don't know what to call this thing. Folder anywhere is taken. Maybe I should just, you know, maybe I should call it Dropbox from high school or from land parties. And he's like, okay, whatever. And then at Dropbox.com, not available. So I got get Dropbox.com. But then.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “And you all show up and play till you play till sunrise and so on. But you bring a bunch of people together and often someone doesn't have the right maps or the right patch or the right whatever. And so we had a convention. Like you just create a folder called your Dropbox that's shared and writable by anyone. And that's how we would exchange files. So that people could play games. And then it's, I remember this, it was like Christmas 2006. I'm trying to come up with a name for Dropbox. Dora didn't have a name then. The initial name, I had The name before I was busy photoshopping a logo. The initial iteration of it was folder anywhere Yes, which just was probably the first indication that I had a brilliant future in marketing.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “Yeah. So Arash and I fell the name Dropbox actually, behind the music version, the story behind the name is also probably unintuitive or not what you'd expect. So you asked what was I like in high school? And the answer was basically he's a huge nerd who likes computer games and that's true. One of the things we would do is we'd all bring our, we would like, a bunch of friends and I would bring our computers to someone's house when we play games. And so back in the day these things were called land parties. They are about as school as they.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “Getting the domain, it was getdropbox.com. Gettingthropox.com domain name was, oh my god, that was a journey. So there was, I don't know, I'm like starting to shake a little bit going. I don't know. I don't know how illuminating this story is, but it's no.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “I mean, first, he's totally embarrassed. He didn't put any of these things together. He didn't know it. He's like, I was so awful that this happened. So mostly it's just both Paul and Jessica turn like bright red and they don't like to talk about it, which is why I like to keep poking at it every now and then. I mean, it's all good. I would have done this for him.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “So we were like patient zero for all this. And then we got the happy phone call from Paul saying, hey, we want to fund you guys. I mean, I don't know. It was nuts.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “And it was funny because we're doing the YC interview. We're milling around waiting for, we go down in the morning, we go get lunch. We come back to the car.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “And he was like, hey, I got this email from Irash and said, like, hey, I saw your video on Hacker News. And Kyle said you're looking for a co-founder. Maybe we should talk. And then it was kind of insane. Maybe we got coffee one more time. And then he drops out of school. He's like a senior. He drops off with a semester left. I was figuring this is going to be like a process, right? I'm going to have to talk to his parents and reassure them. But no, we hang out for two hours and then the two of us commit to spending most of our waking lives together for the foreseeable future. I don't think either of us really understood that at the time. Fortunately, it all has worked out great. But against all odds, so Arash and I team up, I think Paul forgot about his meeting with me.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “So then, but my kind of shaking the trees in San Francisco did help. So I met, it turned out a guy named Kyle, Kyle voked, who I'd met at the MIT Entrepreneurs Club. So he's an MIT student. He dropped out. He had just dropped out to do Justin TV, which became Twitch. And then Kyle then later started Cruz, which did great. So Kyle has done well. And then I was complaining to Kyle. I'm like, hey, Kyle, I need a co-founder. Is there anyone you'd recommend? And he recommended me to, it turned out that Kyle and Arash were floor maids. At MIT. And so he's like, yo, you should talk to Arash. And then a day or two later, I got an email from Arash saying, hey, he was a senior undergrad at MIT computer science student.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “I was like, I could not have F this up any worse if I had tried. Because an Audon I'm co founder, and I'm like, I might have been able to get in if I just like. Hadn't maximally pissed off Paul Anyway, now I've no co-founder and no YC and probably no company, and I have like two weeks left to resolve this, or maybe a week left to resolve it. But anyway, not a lot of time. So it was bad. Yeah, I was like, I don't really see how this all kind of lives happily ever after”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “I think he's coming around. Let me get back to it. That was a tough plan ride home. But it was good training. This is like the new normal if you're starting a company.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “Like my friend, I'm like, this is not going to be good. This is a rough return to San Francisco. So needless to say, the co-founder of the situation did not work out.”

    2018-08-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #334: Drew Houston — The Billionaire Founder of Dropbox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT