Box

The World's Most Innovative Companies 2018

Box is a platform that helps companies expertly manage and secure content within the cloud. Box helps make accessing, sharing, and managing content a straightforward and less complicated process by providing solutions to the information-based problems shared by a range of businesses and companies, regardless of size or industry. The platform assists businesses in a number of different sectors such as marketing, sales, human resources, finance, IT, and app development. Within these industries, Box, which was founded by Dylan Smith and CEO Aaron Levie, makes it easier to view and share different types of files on any device, communicate with coworkers in different departments, manage finances with auditors and investors, and track down and secure specific employee information. The company recently built Box KeySafe, and encryption key management software for the U.S. government’s AWS cloud instance and helped further the company to Department of Defense Level 4 Authorization. Since its inception in 2005, the company has signed up more than 41 million users and 74,000 businesses. Box--which boasts clients such as General Electric and prized startups like Spotify and Airbnb--is to cloud storage what Slack has become to team communication. Think the "Switzerland of enterprise," as Levie says.

Lists

2018: Enterprise

2016: Top 50, Enterprise Software

2014: Top 50, Productivity

Data

valuation: $1.6 billion

public or private: Public

profitable: No

revenue: $200-300 million

staff: 1,400

users: 50,000 clients; 40 million users; 300,000 users within GE alone

headquarters: Redwood City, CA

Competition: Google, Microsoft, Dropbox

Box On The Web

Box

Stories about Box

Dropbox IPO: Maybe there’s an upside to being the “Netflix of online storage”

Aaron Levie Wants Box To Do Way More Than Just Store Your Files

The Box CEO says the billions of documents, photos, and videos stored on its cloud are ripe for a new set of machine learning apps by Google, IBM, and Microsoft.

Box Wins Big In Its First Day Of Trading

After an IPO that raised $175 million, Box shares shot up by more than 70% in the first day of trading. Take that, Microsoft.

Gaming Your Way To Better Problem-Solving At Work

Puzzle nerd Heidi Williams of Box shares her favorite tools (all of them fun) for keeping her skills sharp.

How To Know If Your Dumb Idea Will Change The World

Box SVP Sam Schillace shares how he quickly and cheaply experimented on an app no one wanted–that became the basis for Google Docs.

GoPro Files Documents For A Secret IPO

How Dropbox Spawned A Cottage Security Industry

Dropbox For Business recently launched, offering enhanced security features… but a host of third-party providers beat them to the punch.

Box Wants To Be Your Doctor’s Cloud Service

Your Business Isn’t About You–It’s About Your Customer

Box Launches $Rev To Pay Developers Based On How Many People Are Using Their Apps

Box’s Aaron Levie On The Wisdom Of Swimming Upstream

Chasing hot entrepreneurial trends can all too often end in failure. Box CEO Aaron Levie explains the value (and profit motive) to unconventional thinking about business strategy.

UberConference Gives Its Conference Call Service A Lift With Evernote, Box Integrations

Box Founder Aaron Levie On The Fears And Realities Of Our Chaotic Times

The Innovators Dilemma argues that we should disrupt ourselves before we get disrupted. But what happens when that’s not enough? The wiry, 27-year-old founder of a $1.2 billion business has ideas.

The Secrets Of Generation Flux

How brilliantly managed chaos sparks success inside Nike, Box, Cisco, Foursquare, Intuit, and more.

Dylan Smith Reveals The Strategic Shift That Made Box A Cloud Storage Hit

Should Microsoft, Apple, And Google Give Users More Cloud Choices?

The companies are using their platforms to push their own cloud services instead of, say, Dropbox or Box. Is this anticompetitive? The lead lawyer in the Microsoft antitrust suit and Box’s Aaron Levie sound off.

Amazon Launches Glacier, A Cheap, Cloud-based Data Deep Freeze

Office 15: Microsoft’s Best Bet For Beating Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive

With one billion Office users worldwide, the newest upgrade to Microsoft’s productivity suite could give the company a significant hold on the cloud, which Gartner estimates will become a $149 billion industry by 2015.

Box Goes Global With London Office

How YouSendIt’s New CEO Plans To Take On A Mob Of Flashy, Well-Funded Cloud Competitors

With Dropbox, Box, and now Google Drive hankering to usurp YouSendIt’s market leadership, newly minted CEO Brad Garlinghouse is keeping a cool head–and an eye on customers.

Ideas

This DNA database for trees will help track illegal logging

Is tech finally realizing that contractors need benefits, too?

WeWork is hiring, mentoring, and training 1,500 refugees

Entertainment

Making funny sounds: the music of “Mr. Show,” 20 years later

“The Incredibles 2” shatters box office records with $180 million

“Super Fly” influenced hip-hop. And hip-hop influenced the remake

Co.Design

With “Quickstarter” projects, Kickstarter is going back to basics

This map shows how your city moved over the last 750 million years

Creeps bugging you online? Nastybot writes sick burns for you

Fast Company

New York City’s craft alcohol industry is booming in 2018

Making funny sounds: the music of “Mr. Show,” 20 years later

Who’s the “rocket man” now, Donald Trump?