Drew Houston

Drew Houston
Drew Houston (2010)
Born	(1983-03-04) March 4, 1983 (age 34)
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Occupation	Co-founder and CEO of Dropbox
Net worth	US$1.39 billion (March 2014)

Andrew W. "Drew" Houston (pronounced "HOUS-ton"; born March 4, 1983) is an American Internet entrepreneur who is best known for being the founder and CEO of Dropbox, an online backup and storage service. According to Forbes magazine, his net worth is $1.39 billion.

Drew Houston was born in Acton, Massachusetts in 1983. His father, who was a Harvard University graduate, bought Drew his first computer which he used to learn BASIC Programming.

Drew attended Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in the 1990s. He later graduated with a degree in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. It was there that he met Arash Ferdowsi who would later go on to be co-founder and CTO of Dropbox.

Before working on Dropbox, Drew Houston worked on a number of other startups which include Bit9, Accolade and Hubspot.

Drew Houston was named one of the most promising players aged 30 and under by Business Week, and Dropbox has been touted as Y Combinator's most successful investment to date. Drew 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.

In June 2013, MIT invited Houston to serve as speaker at its annual commencement ceremonies. In his remarks, Houston gave this advice: "They say that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Think about that for a minute: who would be in your circle of five? I have some good news: MIT is one of the best places in the world to start building that circle. If I hadn't come here, I wouldn't have met Adam, I wouldn't have met my amazing cofounder, Arash, and there would be no Dropbox. One thing I've learned is surrounding yourself with inspiring people is now just as important as being talented or working hard. Can you imagine if Michael Jordan hadn’t been in the NBA, if his circle of five had been a bunch of guys in Italy? Your circle pushes you to be better, just as Adam pushed me."