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Levie: Early investors thought the concept for Box was stupid

Aaron Levie · 20VC: Box's Aaron Levie on Why Founders Cannot Hedge Their Bets, The 2 Categories of Wrong Decision and How To Avoid Them & The Biggest Dangers of Being Over-Funded as a Startup · Feb 11, 2022 · at 3:58

Aaron Levie is the co-founder and CEO of Box. He describes the initial reactions he received when first pitching the concept of cloud storage around 2004-2005.

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“And it never felt like an epiphany because the moment I started pitching people on the idea, they thought it was stupid.”

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