HOFFMAN: The more they hashed out the rules for the coming battle royale, the more serious things became. We’re like, “Do they know what they’re getting into?” So we have this polite negotiation where I’m trying to feel them out, because I’m like, “Man, we might just stomp you guys.” We’re like, “Oh man, they seem serious.” They made this cinematic throw down video, unprompted. They recorded a video challenging us to a duel.

HOUSTON: Then Mozy, the backup company, gave us a call out on YouTube. HOFFMAN: With stats like that, Drew and his team were confident that they could out-rock anyone in Silicon Valley. We routinely found ourselves playing a song, the four of us, and we’d be like number seven globally for that song. HOUSTON: We were pretty competitive – as we were with a lot of things. In case you’re not familiar with “Rock Band”, it’s a video game that lets you play along to popular songs with virtual instruments. REID HOFFMAN: That’s Drew Houston, Dropbox co-founder and CEO. But then during the day we couldn’t play the real instruments, so we would play “Rock Band.” To blow off steam at night we’ve always had a tradition of having musical instruments – so guitars and drums – in the office. Chapter 1: Know exactly what your advantage isĭREW HOUSTON: We had a number of early traditions in the beginning years of Dropbox.

Co founder of dropbox