Arash Ferdowsi ( fa, آرش فردوسی, born October 7, 1985) is an Iranian-American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007 ...

Early life and education

Ferdowsi was born in

Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park ( ) is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas. Located in Johnson County, Kansas, it is one of four principal cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area and the most populous suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As ...

, United States on 7 October 1985. He attended

Blue Valley Northwest High School Blue Valley Northwest High School (BVNW) is a high school in Overland Park, Kansas, United States. Blue Valley Northwest is one of five high schools operated by Blue Valley USD 229 school district. Blue Valley Northwest is a member of the Kansas ...

, a public high school in Overland Park, graduating first in his class in 2004. Ferdowsi went on to study electrical engineering and computer science at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT), dropping out of his program in his last year to focus on his business.

Family

Ferdowsi is the son of Iranian immigrants Gholam Ferdowsi (b. 1950) and Tahmineh "Tammy" Faridazar (b. 1959). Ferdowsi's father, a mortgage broker, is a native of

Tabriz Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the List of largest cities of Iran, sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quri Chay, Quru River valley in Iran's historic Aze ...

in northwestern Iran. His parents settled in the United States following the 1979

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...

, then met and married in 1984 while students at the University of Central Missouri and the

University of Missouri–Kansas City The University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) is a public research university in Kansas City, Missouri. UMKC is part of the University of Missouri System and one of only two member universities with a medical school. As of 2020, the university ...

, respectively.

Career

Ferdowsi launched

in June 2007 with his business partner,

Drew Houston Andrew W. Houston (; born March 4, 1983) is an American Internet entrepreneur, and the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, an online backup and storage service. According to ''Forbes'', his net worth is about $2.2 billion. Houston held 24.4 percent ...

, at

. In September 2007, Ferdowsi moved his company to San Francisco and raised

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

from Sequoia Capital,

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, St ...

, and a handful of individual investors. In March 2018, Dropbox underwent an initial public offering, valuing the company at around US$9.2 billion. From the company's establishment in June 2007 until October 2016, Ferdowsi served as the chief technology officer (CTO) of Dropbox. In 2020 he left the company.

Awards and highlights

* Inc. Magazine named Ferdowsi to its 2011 "30 Under 30" top entrepreneurs list. * Fortune Magazine named Ferdowsi to its 2011 "40 Under 40" list. *

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

awarded Ferdowsi a Crunchie for "Founder Of The Year".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferdowsi, Arash MIT School of Engineering alumni American people of Iranian descent American billionaires People from Overland Park, Kansas Living people 1985 births American technology company founders American chief technology officers American technology executives Businesspeople of Iranian descent