Top 7 Founders of the Year

Every year, several technology blogs gather round to vote for the biggest companies, startups, investors, and founders in the industry, under the name of the Crunchies awards. Based on their latest edition, we would like to present you with a list we have compiled of the top 7 founders of the year.

Crunchies gathers its nominees through open submissions from Internet users. Anyone can submit one name from one IP address per day. Based on these nominations, Crunchies picks out the top  most voted contenders after which it reopens the voting process. Curious to see which founders have been the most appreciated by the public? Let’s take a look at the countdown.

No. 3: David Karp

Founded: Tumblr, 2007

Back in 2006, David Karp was running his own software consulting company and wasn’t necessarily focused on expanding his services. However, he had quite the interest in short-form blogs, also referred to as tumbleblogs, and after waiting in vain for a reputed blogging platform to start offering this product, he decided to take matter into his own hands. After launching Tumblr in February 2007, the platform gained over 75,000 users in just 2 short weeks.

No. 2: Aaron Levie, Lee Holloway, Michelle Zatlyn, and Matthew Prince

Founded: Box, 2005(Levie); Cloudfare, 2009(Holloway, Zatlyn, and Prince)

Tallying up the votes was no easy task for the Crunchies, as they had to give the title of runner-up to founders of two different startups. Levie’s creation, Box, is a cloud content sharing and management service catering to businesses worldwide. The company raised a whopping $100 million during its latest series funding and has been valued at nearly $2 billion.

The other 3 founders who emerged as this year’s runner-ups, Prince, Holloway, and Zatlyn created Cloudfare, a content delivery network, focused on improving online performance, speed, and security. The three entrepreneurs met while working on the Project Honey Pot, back in 2007.

No. 1: Arash Ferdowsi and Drew Houston

Founded: Dropbox, 2008

At this year’s Crunchies we have not one, but two winners. Admittedly, they are responsible for co-founding the same business. Fraternity brothers at MIT, Arash Ferdowsi and Drew Houston co-founded Dropbox, one of the first companies in the world make a name for itself in the cloud storage industry. According to Dropbox’s official website, it appears that Drew Houston came up with the idea of creating a file hosting service due to the fact that he always kept forgetting to take his flash drive with him as a student. Looking for a personal solution to his forgetfulness, he soon realized that he could create a product that would not only help himself but many others. It’s safe to assume that he was not mistaken.