A Case Study in Managing Co-Founder Conflict
Assessing when the leaders pull the business in opposite directions.
This case study deals with the a series of complex social conflicts arising from a precariously established company culture at the new and rapidly growing company, Box, Inc. in 2015.
Box specializes in online file sharing and personal cloud content management, founded in 2005 with the company motto of Simple, Secure, Sharing from Anywhere.
Recently, the top executive team at Box was faced with the issue of preserving the efficiency and culture of their start-up in the expansion of their business to accommodate one thousand new employees in new locations: San Francisco, London, Paris, and even some increases in employees at the company headquarters, Los Altos, California.
The relevant individuals in deciding how to approach this issue relating to company culture are cofounders of the company, Aaron Levie (29) and Dylan Smith (28) along with Chief Operating Officer Dan Levin (50) who sought to reproduce the conditions that lead to their own success, what they termed a “secret sauce” in the organization and administration of these expansions.
