42 min

44. Take on Goliath — and win, w/Dropbox's Drew Houston Masters of Scale

    • Management

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/

Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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/

Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

42 min

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