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Dropbox S-1

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Re: Dropbox S-1

#361

Post by lsc »

dlwdlw wrote: post #350
swampthinker wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "you". I don't know your situation or how much you make, this is a very broad rant that is based off of previous discussions I've had. This has to be the most pretentious thing I read in a while. You get paid 6-figures with incredible benefits, while making 2-3x of what the median HOUSEHOLD in this country makes[1], with one of the highest average base salaries, and your individual…

I think you're missing something fundamental about wanting and it's that we are wired to always want more. I think it's useful to accept this as something universal so we can understand why others and ourselves act the way we do. One is that it accepts the imperfect was of others instead of deriding that others are not perfect from a moral high ground. The other is that it prevents ourselves from playing the victim.…

>The games can be stratified into economic divisions but in terms of striving and human drama they are quite similar. The poor person who has never tasted really expensive food gets the same pleasure from something more simple than a rich person who has numbed his palate does from the most expensive things.

My argument is that this is not true. there's a threshold below which not having enough causes significantly more suffering. having to wait two generations before buying the latest apple gadget is not the same level of suffering as having to delay a medical procedure because your job doesn't give you insurance until you've been there 6 months.

I don't know where the line is, but I am saying that going from $20K to $40K a year in total resources available to you makes more difference to your quality of life than going from $100K to $200K. - By a lot.

I mean, your description of being poor as eating plain foods sounds like you might have had a life like mine. Yes, there were times in my life where I had to eat inexpensive food, and yeah, it really wasn't so bad. But... I really think that's a fundamentally different kind of problem than having times in your life where there wasn't enough food at all.

Having times when you might have to get a smaller apartment or even roommates is also unpleasant... but I don't think it compares at all to having times where you might become homeless.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#362

Post by lsc »

slewis wrote: post #351
elmar wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because when enough of us care, we can change the sandbox itself. no need to wait, you can change the sandbox right now, you can create your own startup and give equal ownership to everyone.

Equal ownership of something that’s likely to be zero.

> Equal ownership of something that’s likely to be zero.

I dunno; co-ops have been successful in other areas of endeavor. It's as reasonable a way of organizing a company as any other.

I mean, mostly they are businesses that provide goods and services for money; businesses who's value rests mostly at their profit in a point in time, but it's possible you could come up with a co-op like structure that would work for a tech company where a lot of the value is in the company and getting the company bought out by a larger entity.

I don't know how you'd do it, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done.

I can tell you that as a tech worker with options, I would be whole hell of a lot more likely to join a pre-IPO company if they structured the thing in a way that was more transparent and respectful to the workers when it came to the equity component of their compensation.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#363

Post by mcintyre1994 »

skellera wrote: post #273
faramarz wrote: post #120

Does this suggest they are in the 60-day roadshow quiet period before to the listing? It's a good value buy for me. Dropbox and Spotify whenever they go public. These two apps I've been a paying member since I discovered them.

I’ve considered buying Spotify but I am unsure of future growth or long term profits. What do you see?

It'd be interesting to see if they had a similar moment of growth evaporating when Apple Music entered like Snapchat did when Facebook finally got a clone to stick.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#364

Post by Frondo »

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…

Look, frankly speaking, if you're content with your lot in life, that's great. I'm happy for you.

Telling me to focus on the low-paid service workers is a nice distraction, but that's what it is: there are other groups working to improve their working conditions and working lives. I'm not connected to them, because I'm in the same pretty-well-compensated boat as you.

Maybe you're paid well, maybe you don't think you deserve more. Your employer almost certainly could pay you more, could give you more time off, more say in your job role, more flex time, whatever, but you don't seem to want more.

Again, good for you. Just don't tell the rest of us that none of us should want more pay, time off, autonomy, a voice in how the company is run, or whatever. If you want to hold fast to your own one-man empire of crumbs, go for it.

The rest of us can band together and work for more of that good stuff that comes with working and bargaining together.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#365

Post by sandworm101 »

swampthinker wrote: post #348
sandworm101 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "you". I don't know your situation or how much you make, this is a very broad rant that is based off of previous discussions I've had. This has to be the most pretentious thing I read in a while. You get paid 6-figures with incredible benefits, while making 2-3x of what the median HOUSEHOLD in this country makes[1], with one of the highest average base salaries, and your individual…

Lol. Money isnt everything. I stopped being an IT lawyer and joined the air force. Now im paid to do things that silicon valley hotshots only do in video games. Fancy meals? I just ate a burger while wearing a flightsuit. Tasted better than a thousand billable-hour lunches.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#366

Post by tzhenghao »

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…

My personal opinion on this topic has to do with the skill and requirements of the job, given the time and stage the company is at.

Sure, I'm fine with executives that come much later to be paid more than many that come before him/her. Should a number as high as $34m justify the kind of value he/she puts into the company? I dunno if I can agree with that, and in an early employee's perspective, I'd like to be proven otherwise. Then again, I don't work for Dropbox and do not know the scale of the problem in which this exec has been brought in to solve.

Ultimately, my core principles/values have to do with loyalty and being nice. As founder(s), you must not forget those who brought the company this far. They did unglamorous work and put in crazy hours to help the company achieve product market fit. Founder(s) risk breaking the trust of their employees The counterpoint to this is when the company scales, all other numbers will scale with it too (revenue numbers, employee headcount etc.), and sometimes hiring a key person who can, in the long term, cut costs by $100m might justify his/her salary. Capitalism works like that.

UPDATE: Curious to hear what thoughts founder(s) active in the HN community have about this though. Open to hear decisions on your end. I struggle to come up with a good answer myself.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#367

Post by lsc »

Frondo wrote: post #364
lsc wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Look, frankly speaking, if you're content with your lot in life, that's great. I'm happy for you. Telling me to focus on the low-paid service workers is a nice distraction, but that's what it is: there are other groups working to improve their working conditions and working lives. I'm not connected to them, because I'm in the same pretty-well-compensated boat as you. Maybe you're paid well, maybe you don't think you…

Ah, the spirit of Glompers. "More" - fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with that, but really, there's no reason for anyone outside of your group to support you any more than there is for you to support my own personal quest for more money. It's just a larger empire of crumbs.

The problem is that I don't think this will work, for the same reason that management generally doesn't unionize. Management doesn't unionize because their role is to act in the interest of capital. If capital thinks that management is in it for themselves, management becomes dramatically less useful. (and really, I think that we see a lot of management capture of resources that would normally flow to capital. Management is less useful to capital than it has been in the past. Capital knows this.)

In the ways that matter to these discussions, people who create and manage automation infrastructure are management. It's just that we manage machines that do work, rather than humans that do work. For the same reason that management that was not seen as acting in the interests of capital is worthless, developers who are seen as not acting in the interests of capital will be seen as worthless, too. (I mean, from the perspective of capital.)

Now, I do think that culturally, we are very different and there are some things we could argue for that would improve our lot and that of capital. really, in some ways, I'm very much in agreement that technical workers should be getting a lot of what capital currently gives to management. We can start by making a culture of open salaries. this will eliminate a lot of what management's job is, at our level, which is to individually and secretly negotiate salaries. There's no reason to pay tech workers who negotiate well more than those who don't, so job roles should have pay rates that are known throughout the company. (Of course, there is still negotiation involved in who gets what role, but I think that's negotiation that the technically inclined are better equipped to deal with than straight secret salary negotiations.)

Re: Dropbox S-1

#368

Post by lsc »

sandworm101 wrote: post #365
swampthinker wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't have said "you". I don't know your situation or how much you make, this is a very broad rant that is based off of previous discussions I've had. This has to be the most pretentious thing I read in a while. You get paid 6-figures with incredible benefits, while making 2-3x of what the median HOUSEHOLD in this country makes[1], with one of the highest average base salaries, and your individual…

Lol. Money isnt everything. I stopped being an IT lawyer and joined the air force. Now im paid to do things that silicon valley hotshots only do in video games. Fancy meals? I just ate a burger while wearing a flightsuit. Tasted better than a thousand billable-hour lunches.

I was just talking to a guy who started out in the airforce; (enlisted, so probably no flight suit) he said the food was really pretty good, comparable to what we get here.

My friend who started out in the army, though, tells me that the food here in silicon valley is way better.

For myself, I don't think I'm really together enough (and I don't really have the tolerance for authority) to make it in the armed forces.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#369

Post by sandworm101 »

lsc wrote: post #368
sandworm101 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Money isnt everything. I stopped being an IT lawyer and joined the air force. Now im paid to do things that silicon valley hotshots only do in video games. Fancy meals? I just ate a burger while wearing a flightsuit. Tasted better than a thousand billable-hour lunches.

I was just talking to a guy who started out in the airforce; (enlisted, so probably no flight suit) he said the food was really pretty good, comparable to what we get here. My friend who started out in the army, though, tells me that the food here in silicon valley is way better. For myself, I don't think I'm really together enough (and I don't really have the tolerance for authority) to make it in the armed forces.

Some enlisted wear flightsuits. The SAR guys who jump out to save people are enlisted, so are loadmasters. There are lots of cool aircrew jobs outside the cockpit.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#370

Post by jpalomaki »

jedberg wrote: post #149
malthaus wrote: post #118

I have a lot of respect for Dropbox as they've created an awesome product and user experience that accelerated its niche. But as with Twitter i'm sceptical of the long-term prospects (and hence the need for an IPO vs a trade sale) of single-feature/protocol companies. Nice liquidity event for current shareholders but why should the public invest here? The product is becoming more commoditized with time as well as bei…

> Box seems to have a lock on the enterprise market which feels like the better long-term strategy than being a consumer/startup brand. Yet box only makes about $48 per user per year, whereas Dropbox makes $111 per year. So either Dropbox has more enterprise than we think, or consumer is a lot more valuable than we think.

Maybe Dropbox is serving mostly smaller companies, which have just a few users are therefore not so price sensitive. If you have five guys, then it's still just like $50-100 per month, not really worth the effort to start thinking how to save money on that.

If you are an enterprise with tens or few hundred users, the monthly bill starts to be in a range where it actually makes sense for somebody to spend a few hours to see if you could cut it by xx%.

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