Prevent Android Studio/Intellij Idea from building project on startup
I've confirmed with a Google software engineer that this is currently not an option as of Android Studio 0.2.1. ( See 5th comment: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+XavierDucrohet/posts/1R2iPQzo4Zh )
I've also opened the following ticket as the engineer suggested:https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=57831&thanks=57831&ts=1374268538
Hopefully this will be resolved in the near future! Until then, I guess we'll have to open Android Studio and grab a cup of coffee while the build completes.
I can confirm in latest version 0.8.x this functionality can be prevented by unchecking the Reopen last project on startup box in File -> Settings -> General.
Sounds like you have Make project automatically enabled.
This setting can be found in Settings -> Project Settings -> Compiler, under the Use external build setting.
You can also try disabling the Rebuild module on dependency change setting (it is in the same place).