Aaron Levie has never been one to mince words.
The 30-year old co-founder and CEO of cloud storage company Box—who famously cold-pitched Mark Cuban (“Mark Cuban, of Dancing With The Stars fame," jokes Levie), coming away with a check for $350,000, and once casually announced at a board meeting that he had decided the company needed to raise an additional $50 million—sat down with Forbes editor Bruce Upbin to reflect on his past and present as part of the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia.
Upbin was careful to note that Box is no longer, in fact, a startup. But it’s a mentality Levie, who dropped out of USC after cofounding the company from his dorm room during his sophomore year, says he’s hung onto.
"'Startup' is in your head. It’s not your incorporation date."
Aaron Levie at the Forbes Under 30 Summit.
On Box’s launch, entering the enterprise software sphere (“the most boring two words you could put together,” according to Upbin) and taking on industry giants:
When did Levie make the jump to enterprise?
"Basically when we decided we needed revenue. There comes a time in every startup’s life where you need a business model. For us that was in 2006.”
Levie detailed Box’s dalliances with a number of business models before deciding to simplify and deliver what customers wanted.
“We tried everything that was possible. Everything minus food delivery.”
This is a lesson in how simple it could be: we just decided to listen to customers.”
On the decision to go public:
“We got drunk and just said ‘Let’s do it!’,” Levie joked, following quickly with, “Wait, this is an off the record chat, right?”
On a public company’s wider pool of stakeholders:
After Box’s IPO earlier this year, Levie and his team were confronted with the challenge of informing a much wider circle about their strategy and decision-making, a prospect that included obvious challenges and, he notes, a few benefits.
“In the private market, you have ten or so investors, hundreds or thousands of employees that are your shareholders, but that’s a fairly close knit group of people. When you’re public there are thousands or tens of thousands or even more investors that you have to educate. It’s a binary flip,” said Levie.
“What’s interesting about being public is that it’s a market. A lot of people can make decisions about your company every single second.”
On technology’s widening sphere of influence:
“There’s a deep recognition that technology is going to be at the center of the future of all business and all society,” said Levie, noting that while the tech industry used to be a “feedback loop” of better hardware, faster software, and new search engines, the industry has shifted focus to changing up how people do business in industries like hospitality, transportation, and healthcare.
Levie cited the example of GE realizing that its locomotives and windmills and other manufactured hardware could be connected to and powered by the internet.
“They’ve moved from a business where they’re manufacturing and selling a product to now they’re renting a service. They can do that because of the industrial internet,” he said. “Every single industry necessarily has some kind of digital version of itself and we are rapidly trying to get our customers to this new digital future.”
On a potential tech bubble:
Levie speculated that one might “rationally” say that Uber could be the world’s largest transportation company, but noted the rising tide around powerhouse companies also lifts less-worthy boats.
“Any time you have a lot of excitement around a market, a lot of things that get funded that might not necessarily be the next Uber or Airbnb. That’s where you will see there’s a mismatch between valuations and reality.”
Concerns aside, he maintains that, “the excitement is grounded in actual tectonic shifts that are happening.”
On the new trend of partnerships in tech:
“About five years ago we Photoshopped Steve Ballmer into a pirate,” recalls Levie. “That didn’t help our relationship with
At a recent conference Box, now partnered with many of the giants originally in its crosshairs, bestowed a digital halo on current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. It’s an image that aptly captures the new ethos of partnerships among major tech players.
“That’s why any startup is able to emerge, if your big incumbent is not innovating,” said Levie. “Any big player in this industry now realizes they have to work with a broader ecosystem. That forces a lot of change from the leadership on down.”
On Jack Dorsey being named CEO of Twitter:
“I am no longer in the running,” Levie deadpanned. “Just like I was not, previously.”
