Article by ryan young

Inside

t he

Bo x

Rya nY oun g

I

walk up to the grand tinted black double doors into the headquarters of my Mom’s new company, Box. I assume that this place will be another one of my Mom’s past grey workplaces; uneventful and work driven. When I enter the office, to my surprise I am welcomed by an enormous neon yellow slide and an army of Razor scooter riding Box employees. As I move further into the home of Box, I encounter unique and colorful characters. One personality in particular was Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box. Levie introduces himself and tells me to “stay in school” and to “not do drugs”. I make my way to the cafeteria where I

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get my food and sit down at a table by myself. As I look at my half-eaten burrito, a voice rings out from a nearby table, “Hey, you’re Lesley’s son right?” I timidly reply with an unauthoritative “Yeah”. “Come grab a seat, we’re talking about the [San Francisco] Giants.” He remarks. I sit down with three fresh out of college employees and we proceed to spend the following forty-five minutes talking and touring the offices of Box. On this tour I saw more unique things such as, life sized stuffed animal unicorns, multiple gongs, and a bunker of Nerf guns.

After this tour I have come to the realization that Box is not like many other companies, it’s better.

As I discovered on my tour, Box is a cloud storage company. This means that it allows it’s customers to store and collaborate on files at anytime from anywhere.

But, Box is no longer a small startup that has nothing to lose. In the past three years, Box has gone public, gained about 500 new employees, moved offices, and lost their silde. With such rapid growth in such a small amount of time, Box has been put into a sticky situation.

By growing so fast yet being so big, Box has lost its balance. The company is faced with two choices. One, allow there to be a more free flowing workspace. Or, to become a more strict no-nonsense work environment. At

this time, Box tends to lean more towards a relaxed environment, but there are certainly hits that it may start to bend the other way. Both choices offer their pros and cons. “When people have a positive inner work life, they are more creative, productive, committed to the work, and collegial toward their coworkers” (Amabile). This can be proven by two companies Facebook and Google. These two have managed to create a free flowing and creative work environment while making their way to become the leaders in their industry.

As with these tech giants, Box has leans more to the relaxed side by trying to create a mellow yet productive environment of its own. In order to do this Box “incorporated an environment that lent itself to individuals being able to complete their tasks but also working together and collaborating in in groups.

So what was designed was areas in which people could break out and have meetings and discussions in an open environment to collaborate and share ideas” (Young).

These break out areas that Young refers to a strategical plan to help Box get the results that they want out of their employees. According to one expert ,“the theory is that open spaces that are fun, where people want to

be, facilitate idea exchange.

I’ve watched people interact at Google and you see a cross-fertilization of ideas.”

(James). Box has aimed to

they are less creative, productive, committed and collegial” (Amabile). This is something that not only Box has been faced with. Many

"A tension to manage rather than a problem to solve."

create an environment benefits both the company and its employees, by staying productive but gaining that productivity voluntarily, thus bettering Box. Box lives by three mottos; bring your wacky self to work, get shit done, and fail fast. Solely based on the company mottos, Box has encouraged a community in which employees are valued, encouraged, free, comfortable, and productive. Within this area of employees being liberated, some of their wacky ideas negatively affect the company. If employees act as though work is a playground, not much is getting accomplished and stop taking work seriously. This is the opposite of what the company is looking for. If the company decides that they should stiffen up and tighten the reigns on the employees, it may lead to some negative results. “When [employees] have poor inner work lives…

other rapid growing tech companies that have been in their shoes.

The question that is now proposed is that as Box grows, do they become more corporate and safe structured? Or does Box follow their roots and stay relaxed and trust their employees to get work done? In the long run, both choices could lead to the same result. Box becoming the go to for cloud storage.

Or Box plummeting and losing everything that they have built up. So, will Box start to lose more slides?

Box was started in 2006 by Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith (Rao). They were at a Techcrunch house party where they pitched the idea of Box to a venture capitalist and she was sold (Rao).

Now box is a billion dollar company with nearly 11 million users. A big jump from a company that was started by a college dropout and his best friend. Box has occupied 3

four offices, well five, if you count the garage, since its conception. Box currently occupies a 334,000 square foot Redwood City office (Avalos). Box has other locations in cities such as San Francisco, Austin, and New York. The CEO himself is a spot-on embodiment of the company. Aaron Levie, the CEO, is a wacky guy. His journey with Box started when he decided to dropout of college to chase his dream of becoming a tech CEO. Levie states, “ever since I was pretty young, my dream was to hopefully build out a large company that can have a big impact 4

on the world.” In addition, when asked about his passion and struggle to create the company, Levie said, “we lived in a garage that was renovated ...three us of had to live in one renovated garage... And you aren’t really gonna want to do that for 6 or 9 months or a year with people if you don’t actually wanna work with the people you’re starting your company with. We really wanted to go out and solve this really really hard problem.”

This ideal is something that Box has held true with its growth. Over time Box has hired new employees that are passionate about their

work. Box aims to enhance that passion by offering a more free environment.

During an interview with a Box employee, Zach Turner an example of Box’s work and play conflict arose. Turner described it as a “tension to manage rather a problem to solve”.

Turner proceeded to tell a story about how the Head of Product at Box was faced with a decision of whether or not to include a hack into the Box notes service (a word document tool within the Box app). There is a tradition in the Silicon Valley that on April Fools, companies do something funny.

In years prior Box has participated in this ritual. This year’s joke was that once you open the Box notes service, the popular arcade video game Space Invader takes over your page. This was a very unique and charismatic and still give Box that noncorporate, fun, and creative feel. On the other hand, including the jokes may have given many of their users a delay on the box notes service. This is something that probably aggravated some of their corporate employees.

Turner analyzed this April Fools tension on another level by saying “[The Head of Product] had a decision to make… The Engineers really wanted to do something authentic to Box’s culture and wacky and fun… But he also knew that there was a cost to that that it would mean that there would be some engineering hours focused on this superfluous product…

But he also knew that this was something that was core to something that really energizes and engages his engineers and his product people.” In the end this event proves that Box is leaning more towards its creative environment.

As I made my way around Box’s new headquarters in Redwood City to shoot B-Roll for the film side of this profile, I was in awe of the number of people who

were so outgoing and curious to know if I needed help. As I wander around, I find myself in the lunchroom once again. I get a few shots that show the atmosphere of Box. Then, to my surprise two of my Mom’s employees come over and begin playing ping pong. This is the perfect opportunity. Two young Box employees playing ping pong during their work day. After they finish playing, they ask me if I got some good shots. I say yes and thank them. The

For many young and growing tech companies, The transition from being a startup with nothing to lose into becoming a publicly traded large scale company can be extremely difficult. The issue of choosing work over play does not need to happen. Companies can have work and play and still be extremely successful and I believe that Box is an example of this. As Box looks to the future, they will never be the same company with the

"We really wanted to go out and solve this really really hard problem."

reveal that it was not their choice to go play ping pong.

My Mom told them to go play ping pong so I could film it.

The comfort that exists between employees at Box is next level. Ten years ago, the ping pong players would have been told to shred paper or do some other menial task. Box has changed the workplace. Box is comfortable, relaxed, and unintimidating. These characteristics reflect just exactly how Box is running its company at the moment, and it seems to be succeeding,

neon yellow slide that I first experienced. They can continue to lean more towards creativity, or the reins can be tightened. I believe that no matter what the decision is, that Box will continue to thrive. I can only see Box as being a wacky and relaxed work environment, but I think that Box employees are motivated enough by wanting to become the next Silicon Valley tech giant that it will happen, no matter what the circumstances by which it happens are.

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Works Cited Stewart, James B. “Looking for a Lesson in Google’s Perks.”

The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2013.

Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Kanani, Rahim. “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins as Big Gains.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 29 Aug. 2011. Web.

29 Mar. 2016.

Rao, Leena. “Box: The Path From Arrington’s Backyard To A Bil

lion Dollar Business.” TechCrunch. N.p., 13 May 2012.

Web. 2 Apr. 2016.

Levie, Aaron. Personal Interview. 12 March. 2016.

Young, Gary. Personal Interview. 26 March. 2016 Turner, Zach. Personal Interview. 2 April. 2016

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