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Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

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Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#101

Post by deelowe »

IgorPartola wrote: post #95
morganvachon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" the leasing company actually has limited leverage " This can be true even at the SMB level. My employer sees only a couple of million in revenue yearly, we lease our warehouse/office space and we have more or less free reign to make any non-structural changes. If we decide to clear out a corner of the warehouse to put in more office space, we can (and we have). We just have to pay for the materials and labor. We've…

The ability to modify stuff structurally (which isn’t really structurally but rather just the non-load bearing walls) is pretty standard in commercial leasing. Your employer isn’t getting anything special.

Not only that, but the tenant is responsible for all maintenance and repairs.

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#102

Post by alexnewman »

simcop2387 wrote: post #64
alexnewman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What competitor of dropbox has no linux client?

Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive have no official linux clients.

Uhm, I don't think google drive needs a linux client. It's not syncing right?

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#103

Post by jjoonathan »

IgorPartola wrote: post #95
morganvachon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" the leasing company actually has limited leverage " This can be true even at the SMB level. My employer sees only a couple of million in revenue yearly, we lease our warehouse/office space and we have more or less free reign to make any non-structural changes. If we decide to clear out a corner of the warehouse to put in more office space, we can (and we have). We just have to pay for the materials and labor. We've…

The ability to modify stuff structurally (which isn’t really structurally but rather just the non-load bearing walls) is pretty standard in commercial leasing. Your employer isn’t getting anything special.

Yes, because even a SMB has a lot of leverage compared to, say, a residential leasee. I believe that was the point.

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#104

Post by jjoonathan »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #60
kaishiro wrote: post #24

This is tangential, and I'm not a designer so this is just one dev's opinion, but I found Dropbox's latest rebrand (dropbox.design) to be a bizarre departure for them. It was so off the wall I just assumed it was some sort of parody site until I realized it was official. I'm in no place to determine if it's "good" or "bad", but it's certainly an...interesting direction, if nothing else.

For my taste dropbox.design is borderline ugly. It is definitely not pretty. The colors look like they were picked in MS Paint. https://www.dropbox.com is in the same style and I find it looks very unprofessional, even if it is targeted to regular users. It looks like an art gallery? https://www.dropbox.com/business on the other hand looks clean and trustworthy.

It's not April 1.

It's not URL hijacking.

They have an EV cert.

Ok, you got me, I have no idea how you're pulling it off. Some kind of silly hacker trickery must be the explanation, because there's absolutely no way that a company with such a long track record of tasteful design would intentionally put something that hideous into production. Right? Right??!

:/

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#105

Post by drewda »

vidoc wrote: post #23
drewda wrote: post #5

It's exciting to think ahead to what that part of Mission Bay and Potrero might feel like someday when the train tracks are put in an underground tunnel (for Caltrain and high-speed rail to the Transbay Center) and I-280 is turned into a surface-level boulevard (like Octavia).

> I-280 is turned into a surface-level boulevard (like Octavia). You meant a parking lot, didn't you ? :D

To be more precise, I meant storefronts, a few bike lanes, some trees, and then an "open air sewer for automobiles that pay no direct usage fees but still take up huge amounts of urban space per person" ;)

Snide remarks aside, there are nice drawing of Octavia Boulevard in https://www.amazon.com/Boulevard-Book-Evolution-Multiway-Bou... and an interesting (at least to me) backstory of its development in https://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Struggle-Mobility-Franci...

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#106

Post by Danihan »

mkohlmyr wrote: post #100
tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my taste dropbox.design is borderline ugly. It is definitely not pretty. The colors look like they were picked in MS Paint. https://www.dropbox.com is in the same style and I find it looks very unprofessional, even if it is targeted to regular users. It looks like an art gallery? https://www.dropbox.com/business on the other hand looks clean and trustworthy.

Dear God I can't believe they've gone and done that to their consumer brand. It inspires no confidence, the visual style actually overwhelms the content on the page to the point where the product itself and its values fail to be communicated. On mobile it is particularly bad. If I didn't already have an account, the website design might be enough to keep me from creating one of I land on that front page.

It looks like a very garish pair of sneakers.

Bold move, Cotton.

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#107

Post by jjoonathan »

mkohlmyr wrote: post #100
tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my taste dropbox.design is borderline ugly. It is definitely not pretty. The colors look like they were picked in MS Paint. https://www.dropbox.com is in the same style and I find it looks very unprofessional, even if it is targeted to regular users. It looks like an art gallery? https://www.dropbox.com/business on the other hand looks clean and trustworthy.

Dear God I can't believe they've gone and done that to their consumer brand. It inspires no confidence, the visual style actually overwhelms the content on the page to the point where the product itself and its values fail to be communicated. On mobile it is particularly bad. If I didn't already have an account, the website design might be enough to keep me from creating one of I land on that front page.

> If I didn't already have an account

So do I, but now I have a reason to finally finish that nextcloud VM I've been meaning to set up for ages :-)

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#108

Post by mjcl »

mljoe wrote: post #85
chimtim wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) managing an office building is a lot of hassle. 2) startups are always growing or shrinking. no point putting so much significant capital unless it is an established in for a long haul at a location where talent is surplus. 3) if you indeed have that much capital, you can pretty much dictate what you want and get some tax benefits (amazon, second HQ) or work with a city build a new building suitable for your long-…

Want to also add something about the tax situation with renting vs buying as a business. If a company is focused on owning and profiting from real estate, they can become a "Real Estate Investment Trust" (REIT), which get special tax treatment.

Focused has to mean really focused ... REITs need to make 75% of their income from rents and 95% of their income from rents, dividends and gains from securities sales. Income from other sources is referred to as 'bad income' and is carefully watched.

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#109

Post by ryanbertrand »

Xcelerate wrote: post #30

Naive question, but why would large companies favor leasing instead of just outright purchasing the property? It seems that when the terms of the lease are up, the leasing company has almost unlimited leverage in the next negotiation (unless the tenant company doesn't mind relocating all of its employees).

I believe Zynga owns their building.

Re: Dropbox taking entire building in Mission Bay – biggest lease in city history

#110

Post by dyim »

kaishiro wrote: post #24

This is tangential, and I'm not a designer so this is just one dev's opinion, but I found Dropbox's latest rebrand (dropbox.design) to be a bizarre departure for them. It was so off the wall I just assumed it was some sort of parody site until I realized it was official. I'm in no place to determine if it's "good" or "bad", but it's certainly an...interesting direction, if nothing else.

Not a designer either, but I'm a huge fan - it's very Lichtenstein-y and Warhol-y - and it really feels like a labor of love. The flesh color and the Benetton palate are dope, and probably got a ton of pushback.

To me, it makes Dropbox seem like a place where people are encouraged to care about their craft!

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