At the end of January 2015--after 10 months of sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the stock market to calm down long enough for Box to go public--Aaron Levie and his co-founders rang the fabled opening bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The Redwood City, California-based enterprise-software company that they had founded in their dorm room 10 years prior was finally a public company, with shares that popped 70 percent in their first official day of trading. The spectacle garnered $175 million in gross proceeds. But that wasn't the endgame for Levie, Inc.'s one-time Entrepreneur of the Year--not by a long shot.
Here, Levie discusses that fateful day and the key differences he sees between running a public versus private company. (Spoiler alert: it involves more gray hair.)
What was it like to take Box public?
Exhilarating, partially because you're on no sleep. You come off eight to 10 days on the road pitching your heart out, and then, the day of, you think: I control the world economy this morning. (Note: I did not control the world economy.) It's important in terms of credibility. It's important operationally. It adds more scrutiny and transparency, which I think lead to really good things. But it was not like, "Oh, wow, bucket-list item complete--now I'm done."