Drew Houston

Current

• Founder/CEO/caffeine-to-code converter at Dropbox

Past

• Founder at Accolade
• Software Engineer at Bit9, Inc.
• Consultant / Advisor at Carebook, Inc.

• Chief Architect at SurfProtect, LLC
• Developer at Soft Servo Systems, Inc.
• Developer at Trilance Software

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3 more...

Education

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Recommended

3 people have recommended Drew

Connections

484 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

• My Company

Drew Houston’s Summary

I am an experienced software architect and entrepreneur and have been working for early stage companies in engineering roles since the age of 14. I like solving hard problems, designing products that people love to use, and working on or creating technologies that disrupt industries. I usually end up wearing a lot of hats, especially within the companies I've founded.

My primary technical skills include designing distributed systems, development on both Windows and Linux (Python, C++), algorithm design, reverse engineering and Windows internals, web development and design, and network security. Reasonably proficient in graphic design and Photoshop.

Drew Houston’s Specialties:

Software architecture, web development, distributed systems, Windows development, Windows internals, Linux development, open source technologies, technology for startups, reverse engineering, network security, algorithms, software engineering, Python, C++

Drew Houston’s Experience

• Founder/CEO/caffeine-to-code converter

  Dropbox

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

  January 2007 — Present (2 years 11 months)

  Changing the way people think about files and storage.
  
  Y Combinator funding in summer 2007, seed funding from Sequoia Capital in fall 2007.
  
  http://www.getdropbox.com

• Founder

  Accolade

  (E-Learning industry)

  April 2004 — December 2008 (4 years 9 months)

  Own and operate profitable and innovative online SAT prep company with Harvard colleague. Responsibilities include business development, all technical development, creation of test/tutorial materials, graphic design, sales and marketing. Leveraged Linux, Python, MySQL and several other open source technologies for quick time to market (service went live in Fall 2004.) Net income has doubled every year from 2004-2006.
  
  http://www.accoladeprep.com

• Software Engineer

  Bit9, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

  April 2004 — May 2007 (3 years 2 months)

  From Jan 2006 - May 2007:
  
  Project lead on two unannounced initiatives.
  
  Technical lead on software approval project for version 3.0 of Bit9's Parity desktop application control and anti-malware product. Used deep knowledge of Windows architecture and internals to track and group processes and files, enabling more usable network-wide monitoring of new software and the ability to conveniently deploy approved software on desktops that are otherwise locked down.
  
  In 2004, wrote core transaction-handling code for Win32 server capable of handling 1,000+ simultaneous hosts. Also developed innovative distributed crash reporting library, streamlining the company-wide debugging process.

• Consultant / Advisor

  Carebook, Inc.

  (Privately Held; Internet industry)

  July 2005 — February 2006 (8 months)

  E-health startup currently in the seed/early stage.

• Chief Architect

  SurfProtect, LLC

  (Internet industry)

  September 2002 — April 2004 (1 year 8 months)

• Developer

  Soft Servo Systems, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Machinery industry)

  June 1998 — May 2003 (5 years )

• Developer

  Trilance Software

  (Computer Games industry)

  November 1997 — June 1998 (8 months)

Drew Houston’s Education

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  BS , Computer Science , 2001 — 2006

  Completed BS in EECS in Jan. 2006; took one year leave for employment and finished a term early.

  Activities and Societies:

  Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Entrepreneurs Club

Additional Information

Drew Houston’s Websites:

• My Company

Drew Houston’s Groups:

MIT Enterprise Forum, Boston Web Innovators Group, Y Combinator

•    On Startups - The Community For Entrepreneurs
•    MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alumni
•    Sequoia Capital Portfolio Company CEOs

Drew Houston’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch