Jobs smiled warmly as he told them he was going after their market. “He said we were a feature, not a product,” says Houston. Courteously, Jobs spent the next half hour waxing on over tea about his return to Apple, and why not to trust investors, as the duo—or more accurately, Houston, who plays Penn to Ferdowsi’s mute Teller—peppered him with questions.
When Jobs later followed up with a suggestion to meet at Dropbox’s San Francisco office, Houston proposed that they instead meet in Silicon Valley. “Why let the enemy get a taste?” he now shrugs cockily. Instead, Jobs went dark on the subject, resurfacing only this June, at his final keynote speech, where he unveiled iCloud, and specifically knocked Dropbox as a half-attempt to solve the Internet’s messiest dilemma: How do you get all your files, from all your devices, into one place?
Houston’s reaction was less cocky: “Oh, s–t.”
“Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech’s Hottest Startup.” — Victoria Barret, Forbes (Not single-page)
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Longreads Pick
Brett Sharenow is presiding over the Pepsi Challenge of lightbulbs. The CFO of Switch, a Silicon Valley startup, Sharenow has set himself up in a 20-by-20 booth at the back of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, and he’s asking passersby to check out two identical white shades. Behind one hides a standard incandescent bulb, the familiar lighting technology that has gone largely unchanged since Thomas Edison invented it 132 years ago. Behind the other is a stunning, almost art- deco-style prototype that holds 10 LEDs and a secret fluid. It’s a liquid-cooled bulb, as radically different from Edison’s invention as anything that’s ever been screwed into a standard socket and, Sharenow hopes, the next big thing in the $30 billion lighting industry. The challenge: Can you tell which is which?
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Published: Aug 19, 2011
Length: 21 minutes (5,403 words)
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Longreads Pick
There’s no shortage of drama at Twitter these days: Besides the CEO shuffles, there are secret board meetings, executive power struggles, a plethora of coaches and consultants, and disgruntled founders. (Like Evan Williams. The day after Jack Dorsey announced his return to the company — via tweet, naturally — Williams quit his day-to-day duties at the company, although he remains a board member and Twitter’s largest shareholder, with an estimated 30% to 35% stake.) These theatrics, which go well beyond the usual angst at a new venture, have contributed to a growing perception that innovation has stalled and management is in turmoil at one of Silicon Valley’s most promising startups.
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Published: Apr 14, 2011
Length: 14 minutes (3,719 words)
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Longreads Pick
Andreessen Horowitz—Silicon Valley’s newest, hottest venture capital firm—claims a new, Michael Ovitz-inspired approach to venture capital. Marc Andreessen wants to create a full-service VC firm that helps with all the needs of startups, from recruiting to public relations, just as CAA catered to every aspect of career development—and every personal demand—of film stars and directors.
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Published: Nov 3, 2010
Length: 13 minutes (3,358 words)
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