Innovation in tech favors the naive and the stubborn. If you are too rational you won't tackle problems that others once failed at. Aaron Levie More Quotes by Aaron Levie More Quotes From Aaron Levie You'll learn more in a day talking to customers than a week of brainstorming, a month of watching competitors, or a year of market research. Aaron Levie research talking years Steve Jobs is the most epic entrepreneur of all time. He served as a guiding light for any emerging businessperson who wanted to learn how things should get done. He'll be looked at as one of the best business leaders of all time, and certainly one of the best tech entrepreneurs. Aaron Levie epic light jobs All we're really doing is repeating technologies that were tried 10, 20, 30 years ago... it's just that it was too expensive, too unusable, and we didn't have the enabling technologies to make it possible. Aaron Levie enabling technology years I believe there's plenty of market for each; we're talking about an ecosystem that is going to support billions of devices, so a competitive landscape is good for consumers, developers, and the platforms alike. Apple brings a smooth elegance to its devices and platform, with the best marketplace experience to boot. Google brings a higher volume of devices as well as a more diverse ecosystem to interact with. The real story here is that Microsoft is nowhere to be seen, ending a two-decade monopoly and creating biggest opportunity for software startups probably ever. Aaron Levie real opportunity believe My co-founder Dylan Smith and I left our junior year of college to move to the Bay Area. To the horror of our friends' parents, we actually had two other friends drop out of college to work on the product. The four of us were just working non-stop growing Box. Aaron Levie college two moving My dad is a chemical engineer, and my mom was a teacher. They were pretty serious about education, but I always thought about things a little bit differently. Aaron Levie dad mom teacher My mom is proud of me. But she might not be too happy about the hours I keep or how little I eat. I wake up so late that it would be inappropriate to have breakfast. At most, I will have a snack in the day and dinner. I realize that it's not the healthiest way to live, but it's all I really have time for. Aaron Levie snacks mom would-be The most customer-centric organizations can answer any question by deciding what's best for the customer, without ever having to ask. Aaron Levie asks organization answers We didn't really start the company to go build an enterprise software company. Aaron Levie enterprise building software Always look for these changing technology factors- any market that has a significant change in the underlying raw materials ...or enabling factors, is an environment that is about to change in a very significant way. Aaron Levie raw-materials significant-change technology My downtime tends to resemble my uptime. Weekends are workdays, but toned down. Over the whole weekend, I may have five meetings, as opposed to six on a weekday. I used to play piano for 30 minutes at night, but I had to pull that out of my schedule. I don't have time for nonwork stuff. Aaron Levie weekend play night If there could've ever been a magical time to build an enterprise software company, now is absolutely that time. Aaron Levie enterprise building software We're going from a world of customized software to standardized platforms. Aaron Levie platforms building world The IT model of the enterprise has become a lot more user lead. Aaron Levie models enterprise building Every single industry is going through a major business model and technology oriented disruption. Aaron Levie disruption building technology They can bring the technology in, then you can sell to the enterprise when they want to have better control, better security... you still have the same biz model as a traditional enterprise sw company, but the way to get into the company is through the end user. Aaron Levie technology want way In a user lead model, users are bringing in their own technology... and you can build software then, around the user. Aaron Levie building software technology In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization. Aaron Levie organization winning world If you're in your early 20s and you're hanging out with a bunch of other people in their early 20s, nobody has a sense of the kinds of problems that real 'workers' run into every day. They're running into a completely different set of problems like 'what's the party going on right now that I should be going to? Aaron Levie party real running If you don't go to every level of your company, you distance yourself from the marketplace and from your people. Aaron Levie distance levels people
