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Dropbox S-1

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Re: Dropbox S-1

#331

Post by lylo »

brisance wrote: post #330
lylo wrote: post #162

I’m a fan of Dropbox, it’s an excellent product. It’s the only file sync product I’ve used in anger that I actually trust — I’ve had glitches of one sort or another with iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive... never with Dropbox. It just works. Apple should have bought them, Jobs got it wrong ;-) Dropbox Paper is also a delight to use, from a personal perspective. I’ve never used it on a team. I would be interested to hear…

Apple did not get it wrong. Steve Jobs offered to buy (for a putative $800M) but Drew Houston said it was not for sale. Thereafter, Steve was reportedly to have said that Apple would crush them since Dropbox is a feature and not a product.

I stand corrected! I thought he didn’t want to buy them for that reason, didn’t realise he had made an offer.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#332

Post by pbhjpbhj »

cjalmeida wrote: post #212
achompas wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never tried myself but it seems quite feasible to build a decent profile of someones taste in fashion from a bit of data. I've thought about this as well. How would you personally try to build this profile for users, then market to them based on it?

You could initially present a user some images to assess it's preferences and use some recommender system (collaborative filtering), a la Netflix. That could give you an starting point. But I believe the main issue is that fashion products have, by definition, short shelf life, so you can't run the algos on SKU data. Then you can use deep learning on product images + user categorical data to try to predict preference…

Seeing what people themselves like doesn't sound a good way to determine what fashion they'd buy. Fashion is about a consensus largely established by a cabal of sellers; users surely want to find out what is fashionable? Fashion is mainly about what other people like.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#333

Post by sandworm101 »

lsc wrote: post #314
Frondo wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, personally, I do care about the imbalance, and I strongly encourage my fellow techies to care, too. Why? Because when enough of us care, we can change the sandbox itself. None of this stuff is set in stone. Great that you're content with crumbs, but I'm not, and I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. I'll do my part to leave…

>Great that you're content with crumbs, but I'm not, and I certainly don't want to see the next generation of technicians laboring under the same conditions as so many of ours has done. I'll do my part to leave the world a better place for my successors; not just the same status quo. What's the point of life otherwise? dude, I'm a silicon valley computer technician. I literally make 10x what the service people I see…

You are being fooled. Those meals and buses are to keep you at work. Anything other than cash only ties you more tightly to the company. Demand money, not better snacks at the company store.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#334

Post by labso »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #323
throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

Sometimes I think about starting a tech co-op where every member has an equal stake, and we just build SaaS services and mobile apps or games until something works. I've been doing that by myself, so it would be nice to diversify and get a stake in a number of other projects. Similar to an angel investor who invests in a lot of startups, but we'd be investing time and effort instead of money. I'm thinking we could ha…

I have been thinking the same idea for a while now. Not in a place that would be able to commit, but if you really try this I would like to follow up.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#335

Post by jest3r1 »

bad_user wrote: post #268
jest3r1 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Curious, which competition? I clearly outlined many competitors similar to Dbox that offer end-to-end encryption: (SpiderOak, Tresorit, Sync.com, pCloud). NextCloud (open source self-hosted Dropbox alternative) also just launched end-to-end encryption. >Therefore I would trust Gmail more than I would trust Proton Mail. Google: don't expect privacy when sending to Gmail: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/a…

SpiderOak has a high price, has been very slow in my tests and their client doesn't work well. There have been reports of throttling on large uploads. Plus they've been stagnating. All of this is a symptom of them not being popular enough I'm sure, but that's not a good sign. pCloud doesn't do 2-factor authentication yet, which is freaking important for your non-encrypted files at least. I asked them about it because…

So, between the two of us, we've now come up with a number of competitors working on similar products that include E2E encryption. We both agree that these competitors still have work to do, in terms of implementing features and fine tuning performance. But they're not standing still.

The fact that both of us are actively using at least one alternative, in addition to Dropbox, proves my point. That E2E encryption (alternatives that offer better privacy) could be a threat to Dropbox, if and when the alternatives become a viable total replacement.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#336

Post by jest3r1 »

varenc wrote: post #286
jest3r1 wrote: post #238

The risk factors fail to mention their inability to offer any kind of end-to-end encryption. Or that E2E encryption is the differentiator that most of their competitors offer. Dropbox (employees and trusted third parties) will always have access to your files. Before you downvote. This is not necessarily a bad thing. They can deliver more features and better performance as a result. Reliability is key, and it's certa…

Dropbox mentions their real competition in S1 filing: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Box. None of them seem to offer E2E. The competitors you cited aren't worth mentioning due to their small market share relative to the big players. E2E might be feature customers start demanding in the future, but it sure doesn't seem like that now. (though I wonder how many folks are using the big players on top of other encr…

Dropbox mentions Microsoft, Google and Apple as competition, because for these companies, file synchronization is just another feature (not a product). Steve Jobs said it himself: https://techcrunch.com/2012/01/23/dld-2012-drew-houston-yes-...

And sure, the big three don't seem to care too much about privacy (although Apple has recently been making some strides with regards to encryption).

The fact that there are many "not worth mentioning" competitors building Dropbox alternatives (or add-ons) with E2E encryption may signal that there actually is a demand.

It's only a matter of time before one of these companies gets it "right".

Re: Dropbox S-1

#337

Post by asmithmd1 »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #323
throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

Sometimes I think about starting a tech co-op where every member has an equal stake, and we just build SaaS services and mobile apps or games until something works. I've been doing that by myself, so it would be nice to diversify and get a stake in a number of other projects. Similar to an angel investor who invests in a lot of startups, but we'd be investing time and effort instead of money. I'm thinking we could ha…

Once you are established, have applicants work long hours for entry level wages as "associates" in the hopes they could become "partner" one day. This is obviously the law firm model. I have also wondered why it hasn't been (to my knowledge) replicated in tech. The cynical answer is that once you have a suite of profitable applications bringing in money, why share that with new employees when you can get the same work done for "crumbs"

Re: Dropbox S-1

#338

Post by yeukhon »

pg_bot wrote: post #91
blocked_again wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious why going public deserves an applause. Is being private a bad thing?

When you take investment money, it comes with the expectation that there will be a liquidity event. (going public, selling to another corporation) Being private is not a bad thing at all, in fact I would expect most entrepreneurs would prefer that their companies remain private. However you've accepted a faustian bargain once you take money from someone else. Going public is seen as the most desirable liquidity event…

The bot has spoken.

The most important thing out of all, really, is funding through public market.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#339

Post by yeukhon »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #250
throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

It never was and never will be. We like to pretend that employees are so fairly compensated, and yet I had to fight tooth and nail to get a mere 2% equity. The thought of an equity stake closer to 10% was almost unheard of. But you bet I'd have had an impact large enough to justify those returns, in the sense of http://paulgraham.com/equity.html Except... It's not quite that simple. Most people don't care. The vast m…

Equity is not important for me for the most part. I have to exercise by paying when I leave. I rather get free shares and I’d stay longer. Otherwise, joining a company like FB would be wise if you want stready return on top of your base compensation.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#340

Post by ulfw »

throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

This isn't even jealousy speaking, really. I don't even know the gentleman.

But I fail to see how someone would be worth this kind of money as, what's mostly a people manager of a (late) startup.

His own rank and file have to work 30 years to make what he makes in a year. Sorry but ... that makes me want to drop my (paid) Dropbox account.

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