Aaron Levie (1984-)

A Aaron Levie (1984-) is a perosn.

• AKA: Aaron Winsor Levie.
• Context:
  • He was born on December 27, 1984, in Boulder, Colorado, to Ben Levie (a chemical engineer) and Karyn Levie (a speech-language pathologist).
  • He moved to Mercer Island, Washington at age ten, where he attended Islander Middle School and Mercer Island High School.
  • He can be an American technology entrepreneur .
  • He developed early entrepreneurial ventures in high school, including Zizap and Fastest.com.
  • He attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005, initially interested in film school before pursuing business studies.
  • He co-founded Box Inc. with Dylan Smith in April 2005 while still in college, operating from Smith family residence on Mercer Island.
  • He recruited childhood friends Jeff Queisser and Sam Ghods as Box co-founders.
  • He pivoted Box from a consumer cloud storage service to an enterprise content management platform in 2007.
  • He secured early funding from Mark Cuban through a cold email in 2005.
  • He led Box through venture funding rounds from Andreessen Horowitz, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and other venture capital firms.
  • He guided Box to its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in January 2015.
  • He declined a $600 million acquisition offer from Citrix in 2011 to continue building Box.
  • He maintains an unconventional work schedule, typically arriving at 11:00-11:30 AM and working until 3:00 AM.
  • He is known for wearing red Converse high-top sneakers as his signature footwear.
  • He advocates for AI-first enterprise software and intelligent content management.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Levie, Early 2000s, during his high school entrepreneurship phase building early web ventures.
  • Levie, 2003-2005, as a USC student developing the Box concept and launching box.net.
  • Levie, 2005-2010, establishing Box as a venture-backed startup and pivoting to enterprise market.
  • Levie, 2010-2015, scaling Box through major funding rounds and preparing for public offering.
  • Levie, 2015-2020, leading Box as a public company CEO and expanding enterprise adoption.
  • Levie, 2020s, positioning Box as an AI-powered content cloud leader.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Drew Houston (1983-), who founded Dropbox focusing on consumer cloud storage.
  • Stewart Butterfield (1973-), who pivoted Slack from gaming to enterprise communication.
  • Daniel Ek (1983-), who built Spotify as a consumer technology platform.
• See: Box Inc., Enterprise Cloud Computing, Silicon Valley Entrepreneur, Cloud Storage Pioneer, USC Dropout Entrepreneur, Mercer Island High School Alumni.

---