Dropbox founder Drew Houston steps down as CEO

Drew Houston is stepping down as chief executive of Dropbox after 19 years, moving to executive chairman after a transition period. Ashraf Alkarmi, Dropbox’s head of product, has been named co-CEO effective immediately and will take the role outright after the transition. Dropbox shares fell in premarket trading following the announcement. The company’s market capitalization is just above $6 billion, about half of its peak on the first day of trading in March 2018. Houston plans an entrepreneurial, AI-focused next chapter. Alkarmi joined Dropbox in November 2024 after leadership roles at Vimeo, Amazon, Meta, and founding PresAsk. Michael Torres will join as chief product officer on 7 July after serving at Google Chrome and previously leading Kindle product at Amazon.

"Drew Houston, the co-founder who built Dropbox from a Y Combinator demo into a company with more than 700 million registered users, is stepping down as chief executive. Ashraf Alkarmi, Dropbox's current head of product, has been named co-CEO effective immediately. After a transition period, Houston will become executive chairman and Alkarmi will take the role outright."

"Houston, who is 43, told CNBC that his next chapter will be entrepreneurial and AI-focused. He did not announce a specific venture but made clear that retirement, or sailing, is not the plan. Alkarmi, 47, joined Dropbox in November 2024 as senior vice president and general manager of Dropbox Core."

"Houston credited Alkarmi with making the company "a lot more responsive to our customers" and said the new leader was "taking bigger swings on innovation." The transition comes alongside a second senior hire. Michael Torres, currently vice president of product for Google's Chrome, will join Dropbox as chief product officer on 7 July."

"The leadership change reflects the strategic reality Dropbox has been navigating for years. The company pioneered consumer cloud storage but watched as Google Drive, Apple iCloud and Microsoft OneDrive squeezed its core storage business. Dropbox's market capitalisation has halved since its 2018 IPO as the tech giants competed for users."

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