Arash Ferdowsi (, born October 7, 1985) is an 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, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropbox w ...

Early life and education

Ferdowsi was born in

Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park ( ) is the largest city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and the List of cities in Kansas#Highest population listing, second-most populous city in the state of Kansas. It is one of four principal city, principal cities in ...

, United States on 7 October 1985. He attended Blue Valley Northwest High School, 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 university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(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 (; ) is a city in the Central District (Tabriz County), Central District of Tabriz County, in the East Azerbaijan province, East Azerbaijan province of northwestern Iran. It serves as capital of the province, the county, and the distric ...

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

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...

, 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 or Kansas City) is a Public university, public research university in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. UMKC is part of the University of Missouri System and has a UMKC School of Medicine, medic ...

, respectively.

Career

Ferdowsi launched

in June 2007 with his business partner, Drew Houston, at the

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

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

from

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

, Accel,

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

, 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 global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

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