The Silicon Review ^Asia

The California based cloud service platform, Dropbox is going public and the CEO is about to cash in. Recently, Dropbox has filed an S-1 paperwork for its much-awaited IPO and in the documents, it was revealed that Drew Houston has made around $110 million in cash and stock in 2017.

The total compensation of Houston's package breaks down to $400,000 in base salary and a cash bonus of $260,000. The bulk of his salary came from a restricted stock grant in which a 15.5 million share grant was valued at $109.6 million by Dropbox. Giving each share a price of roughly $7.07, Houston stands to gain a lot by holding onto the shares in the grant as they will vest in the next 4-10 years, depending on when the company's stock hits certain prices.

Drew Houston, who turned 35 on March 4th, could see some of the cash from that grant by next year. If his company’s shares hit $20, then about 3.1 million of Houston's shares will vest after 1 January 2018. And that would be roughly around $62 million for Houston.

So, by keeping Dropbox a hot company, Houston is now aiming to gain a lot by hanging onto shares he was given which would amount to $930 million. But, according to the S-1 filing, even though Dropbox's annual performance is improving, the company is still not profitable.

Some of the big names that are also standing to gain big in the Dropbox IPO include Arash Ferdowski, co-founder of the venture capital firms, Sequoia Capital and Accel, the board of directors – which includes former CEO of HP, Meg Whitman and former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.