Congrats Dropbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#81

Post by lucozade » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

boto3 wrote: post #70

defen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably around 0.06 * 10,000,000,000 Assuming no subsequent investments, dilution, selling of shares, etc.

So 600M is the upper bound. Drew Houston owns roughly 25% of the company now, and he probably owned ~75% at when YC invested, for a dilution rate of 3. I'd say YC investment probably has dilution rate of 10, for the real amount of 60M. Not bad, but not Whatsapp scale either.

I know. Sucks to be them, right?

Helping other people realise their dreams and only making 8/9 figures in the bargain. Can't imagine why they would bother.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#82

Post by 3pt14159 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #79

3pt14159 wrote: post #35

Edit: Removing comment.

Why did you remove it? Here is how I see it. 1) He wasn't straightforward -- i.e. he didn't outright say "we are already funding an idea similar/identical to yours " but I wouldn't call him a liar. 2) Who knows what his intentions are. Maybe he wanted to eliminate competition. Maybe he saw the dropbox team ahead/better-positioned and wanted to save these new applicants the time. But put yourself in his shoes. What wo…

Because someone who is otherwise very busy privately questioned the veracity of it. From a bayesian perspective I decided that it changed how certain I was of the stories I heard from the founders. I know I heard a story that was essentially as I originally wrote it, because it was repeated a number of times, I'm just not sure about how embellished it was.

So given my new uncertainty I decided to remove it.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#83

Post by jdminhbg » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #78

drstewart wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the requisite "why would you do this? it's trivial to instead!"

Ha-ha, but for every one where the criticism turned out to be wrong, how many are there where the criticism was spot on? We laugh at things the HN Dropbox critique and the Slashdot iPod critique, but without people there to criticize and point out potential pitfalls, we’re all just patting each other on the back and telling each other how awesome everything is. Is that how good ideas grow?

When you have a success rate of 10%, blindly dismissing everything gets you 90% accuracy, but it's not particularly insightful.

Show HN threads tend to get both constructive and mindless criticism. I don't think it's wrong to point out the unhelpful kind of criticism.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#84

Post by philfrasty » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

Oh come on Drew, after ringing that bell I want to see a cool "hi" by dhouston as the top comment.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#85

Post by 3pt14159 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

claytonjy wrote: post #58

3pt14159 wrote: post #35

Edit: Removing comment.

There's something really odd to me about describing a $100MM acquisition as "middling"; wouldn't that almost guarantee multi-million paydays for the founders? Yeah, way below Dropbox's valuation, but still significantly more money than I expect to ever be a party to.

I said less than $100m. I don't know how much the acquisition was for, but I know it's less than that.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#86

Post by GBond » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

jl wrote: post #29

Incidentally, Drew's relationship with the HN community is even older than his relationship with Y Combinator. Two weeks before we interviewed Drew and Arash, Drew posted Dropbox to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

I remember this post. One of many "show HN" posts that have hit it big. Congrats!

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#87

Post by kchoudhu » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #3

Up 47% at the moment. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/dbx

Yeah, the bankers made out like bandits on this one.

RIP pre-IPO investors.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#88

Post by stanfordkid » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

felixgallo wrote: post #4

adventured wrote: post #3

Up 47% at the moment. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/dbx

looks like they mispriced. Most of those gains are accruing to underwriters and speculators rather than the company. Same thing happened to eToys.

people always say this during IPO... you need to take volume into account.

What is the volume trading at 44% above the opening price?

When you put $700mm of securities on the market you need to price them low enough so that investors hold.

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#89

Post by quexy » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #17

Let's celebrate AFTER we see what Dropbox does with the IPO proceeds. Here's a to-do list: 1. Resurrect drop.io product killed by FB. 2. Acquire HelloSign or build it internally. 3. Acquire and fix Scribd, and restore document publishing capabilities; or Zoho. 4. Acquire Zapier or one of their competitors (eg. Integromat). 5. Acquire Canva, ASCIIflow and PandaDocs. Thus leaving Box.net in your dust and await acquisit…

.. and give us back Mailbox!

Re: Congrats Dropbox

#90

Post by dhouston » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

Thank you Paul and Jessica for taking a chance on us — we wouldn’t be here without you and YC :)

And thank you HN — I’m pretty sure the upvotes on the original screencast helped us get into YC and on Paul & Jessica’s radar to begin with!

Even you BrandonM — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 — my favorite HN comment thread of all time :)