Aaron Levie

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Aaron Levie

Levie at a speaking engagement in 2011
Born Aaron Winsor Levie[1]
(1985-12-27) December 27, 1985[2]
Seattle, Washington, USA
Residence Los Altos, California
Alma mater University of Southern California[3]
Occupation CEO at Box
Known for Co-Founder of Enterprise Cloud Software Box[4]
Website
www.box.com

Aaron Winsor Levie (born 1985) is an American entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of the enterprise cloud company Box,[3] which as of 2012 is used by more than 11 million individuals and 120,000 businesses worldwide.[5][6] His net worth is estimated at $100 million.

Early life and education

Aaron Levie was born in 1985 in Seattle, Washington, to Ben and Karyn Levie.[7] He grew up on Mercer Island and graduated from Mercer Island High School. Levie attended the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California before taking a leave of absence in 2005 to found Box.[7][8]

Professional career

The idea for Box originated as a college business project that Aaron was working on in 2004. The project examined storage options for businesses and after cold-calling several organizations to ask how they are storing their content and data, he soon discovered how fragmented the market was. The opportunity Levie saw was to build a real business to fundamentally change the way individuals access their information and store documents and files.[7]

In December 2005, during his junior year at USC, Aaron decided to take a leave of absence to launch Box (originally called box.net) with lifelong friend and Box CFO, Dylan Smith. At the time, Box was a storage service where users could pay to store their files in the cloud.[7]

Levie and Smith incorporated Box in April 2005 while operating the company out of Smith’s parents’ house on Mercer Island. Soon after, they moved the company to Berkeley, California. Levie and Smith first secured angel investment for Box from Texas billionaire Mark Cuban after a cold e-mail.[3][9][10]

In 2007, the co-founders arrived at a crossroads as the consumer cloud storage space was becoming increasingly crowded with industry competitors. Levie and Smith decided to seize a unique market opportunity and pivot Box from a consumer service to one focused on selling to businesses and the enterprise. As a result, Levie and Smith successfully moved ahead of the impending battle for big business adoption of cloud services.

As of 2011, 77% of the Fortune 500 use Box to collaborate, access and share their content across multiple platforms including Android, BlackBerry, iOS and Windows. Box is a privately held company headquartered in Los Altos and backed by venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Emergence Capital Partners, General Atlantic, Meritech Capital Partners, NEA, Scale Venture Partners, Social+Capital Partnership, U.S. Venture Partners, and strategic investors Salesforce.com and SAP. Box customers include P&G, AAA, McAfee, Pandora and Six Flags Entertainment.[11][12]

In addition, Box expanded its operations into Europe in 2012, with the opening of its first office in London, England.[13]

Speaking and contributed writing

Aaron has spoken at numerous industry events, including Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Dreamforce, LeWeb, RSA, MobileBeat, GigaOm Structure, TechCrunch Disrupt and DEMO. He has also written numerous articles on disruptive innovation in the technology industry for publications such as The Washington Post, CNN.com, Fortune, Forbes and Fast Company.[14][15][16][17]

Awards and recognition

In 2012, Aaron Levie was named one of Fast Company’s Generation Flux Leaders. Fast Company also placed Aaron on their Most Creative People in Business list for 2011. Inc. Magazine called Aaron one of the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30.[18][19] He also received honors from The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal (40 Under 40) and The Churchill Club.[20] Under Levie’s leadership, Box itself has received numerous industry awards for its product innovation and company growth, and is included on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 list in 2011 and 2012. Box was one of the San Francisco Business Journal’s Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2010 and 2011.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.bizapedia.com/people/AARON-LEVIE.html
  2. ↑ "30 AND UNDER: 9 Young Founders Who Are Running Billion-Dollar Companies". Business Insider. 2012-08-03. Retrieved 2012-08-17. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Liedtke, Michael (28 February 2011). "Investing in a Box: $48M Bet On Storage Service". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 23 August 2012.  – via HighBeam (subscription required)
  4. ↑ Matt Rosoff (2011-08-29). "This 26-Year Old Founder Is Raising $100 Million To Take On Giants Like Microsoft - Business Insider". Articles.businessinsider.com. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  5. ↑ Maltais, Michelle (8 May 2012). "Out of the Box with CEO Aaron Levie". LA Times. Retrieved 23 August 2012. 
  6. ↑ "Box raises $125M for aggressive growth around the globe". 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Cassidy, Mike (21 February 2011). "Silicon valley Start-Ups Provide Their Own Education". Oakland Tribune via High Beam. Retrieved 23 August 2012.  – via HighBeam (subscription required)
  8. ↑ Holland, Joel (2010-07-16). "I'm an Entrepreneur; Get Me Out of Here!". Entrepreneur.com. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  9. ↑ "Bill Robinson: Aaron Levie and Box: Thinking Outside Of It". Huffingtonpost.com. 2012-01-10. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  10. ↑ Matt Rosoff (2011-10-11). "Box.net Just Scored $81 Million - Here's What They'll Spend It On". Business Insider. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  11. ↑ "Microsoft "not even relevant," says Box CEO Aaron Levie". VentureBeat. 2011-11-30. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  12. ↑ "Cloud storage provider Box.net spurns $500M offer (exclusive)". VentureBeat. 2011-09-15. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  13. ↑ "US Cloud Storage Player Box Come To The UK". Tech Radar. 21 June 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2012. 
  14. ↑ "A Visit With Box.net's Aaron Levie at His New Office (Video) - Arik Hesseldahl - Enterprise". AllThingsD. 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  15. ↑ "Aaron Levie of Box on This Week in Startups #224 | ThisWeekIn". Thisweekin.com. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  16. ↑ Aaron Levie (2011-12-02). "VatorNews - Aaron Levie on Box's competitive edge". Vator.tv. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  17. ↑ Kym McNicholas (2011-05-08). "Why Box.net's CEO Aaron Levie's The Next David Copperfield". Forbes. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  18. ↑ "30 Most Influential Under 30 CEOs of 2010". Under 30 CEO. 11 January 2011. Retrieved 23 August 2012. 
  19. ↑ "Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 - Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith, Box.net". Inc.com. 2008. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  20. ↑ "40 Under 40: Aaron Levie". San Jose Biz Journal. 1 December 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2012. 
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