Facing a cloudy future at Silicon Valley

Los Altos, California

ABOUT 10 years ago, Aaron Levie dropped out of college to start a Silicon Valley company called Box. Before long, he was one of those young technology wizards of whom great things were expected.

Mr Levie faced hurdles and some fitful progress, but ultimately reached the point many entrepreneurs only dream of: Box conducted an initial public offering in January, but had already raised more than US$500 million privately. It employs 1,200 people and is considered on the cutting edge of a new generation of companies that provide services to big business customers over cloud-computing systems.