Dropbox Founder Drew Houston is stepping down as CEO after 19 years leading the cloud storage company. Houston will move into the role of executive chairman after an initial transition period in which he will share the co-CEO title with Ashraf Alkarmi, who is being promoted from product chief.
Alkarmi joined Dropbox from Vimeo in late 2024 and will eventually become the company’s sole CEO. Houston told CNBC there was no specific reason for the timing of the move, saying, “There’s never a perfect time.” He also said part of him had always thought he would remain CEO of Dropbox “until my last gasp of my career.”
The transition comes as Dropbox continues to work through a slower growth period. The company’s revenue has been roughly flat over the past two years and declined slightly in 2025, while its market value remains below the $10 billion valuation it reached in the private market in 2014. Dropbox said in its latest quarterly report that it has more than 18 million paying users.
Houston said Dropbox has become “a lot more responsive” to customers since Alkarmi joined and has been taking “bigger swings on innovation.” The company has been expanding Dash, its AI-powered search product that helps users find and interact with content across documents, messages, video, audio, and third-party apps.
Dropbox also said Mike Torres will join the company from Google as Chief Product Officer in July. Torres is currently Vice President of Product for Google Chrome. The new leadership team will take over as Dropbox looks to sharpen its product strategy and compete with larger technology companies, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon.