[kanamekun]

According to the article, Drew got feedback in parallel with his product development: "In parallel with their product development efforts, the founders wanted feedback from customers about what really mattered to them."

The video was just a prototype so that he could give a demo over video, and get feedback on that: "The challenge was that it was impossible to demonstrate the working software in a prototype form. The product required that they overcome significant technical hurdles; it also had an online service component that required high reliability and availability. To avoid the risk of waking up after years of development with a product nobody wanted, Drew did something unexpectedly easy: he made a video."

It's a pretty clear case of an MVP. He build the minimum needed to ask people for feedback (in this case, not even a product but just a demo/video). The strong customer response to the demo/video that he then received validated his product-market fit before he invested a lot of time turning his demo into a fully working product.

[endeavor]

The product looks nearly done in the video. It was already in private beta. Every feature that I knowingly use in Dropbox today was shown in that video.

IIRC Drew applied to YC in early 2007 and had some working code by that time. The change dates on files in video are March 2008, so he's been working at this for at least a year.

Calling this a MVP seems like a bit of a stretch.