I’m super curious, how much was the original investment YC made (i assume 50k?) and what is that share worth today as they IPO?
Congrats Dropbox
201–210 of 285 posts
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"! I like to think that I've gained a lot of perspective over the last 11 years; it's pretty clear to me that point #1 was short-sighted and exhibited a lot of tunnel…
I think your initial comment, your reply - and now this all say the same thing. You seem like a great person & I wish you well with your own projects.
That's very kind, thanks!
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"! I like to think that I've gained a lot of perspective over the last 11 years; it's pretty clear to me that point #1 was short-sighted and exhibited a lot of tunnel…
Your comment was one of a handful that lead to me registering for an account on HN instead of just lurking, I love that this got closure in my mind. Thank you for responding to this
That bit about closure made me smile. You're welcome :). I owe a huge thank you to the HN member who emailed me to let me know about this discussion.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
18 million shares traded on the open at $29, and since then 23 million shares have traded between $28.80 and $31.60. Safe to say there's a healthy bid at $29.
Right. But who were the buyers? Would the same buyers have bought 10 million shares at $29? Or was it thousands of smaller sized investors paying a premium? You need whales to keep the market stable and I don't think the whales would have bought at $29 ... look at the volume over time post IPO, not just day of. The big investors who came in cheap will buy back shares if the price dips... right now they are profiting off the pop.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#205Thank 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 :)
It's too bad the original screencast page is gone: http://www.getdropbox.com/u/2/screencast.html
Edit: someone posted an archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20100817162301/http://dl-web.dro...
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#206Thank 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 :)
Congratulations to the entire team. I think it's interesting to go back to that thread, look at what the author (BrandonM) has done since then and learn some important lessons about being able to step outside of your own head to see the bigger picture. Looks like he's still working for another company and has an unfinished blog ( http://shebang.brandonmintern.com ) but he seems like a really smart guy. The takeaway I…
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Re: Congrats Dropbox
#207Am I correct that if there were stock options granted to the first employees of Dropbox in 2007 then they expired in 2017?
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#208[deleted]
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hell, even the menu bar UI on OS X is still terrible; they 'broke' it maybe 5 years ago and it's been the same mess ever since. It used to tell you what % of your dropbox was used, it used to tell you syncing status, it used to tell you all kinds of things. Now it's some weird changelog that looks nothing like anything else in OS X (or Windows, for that matter) from a UX perspective. I mean, I guess I'm glad they did…
It still does tell you those things (they've just moved around a bit). The % used is seen when you click on the settings. I think because, honestly, they're trying to abstract the idea that you need to do that (the average user just cares that it works not the %). Get where you're coming from tho - it's not the most clear or clean UI.
A "power user" toggle in most apps would be great. PayPal's site kinda does this with a "classic mode" toggle.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"! I like to think that I've gained a lot of perspective over the last 11 years; it's pretty clear to me that point #1 was short-sighted and exhibited a lot of tunnel…
Well put. Also, one thing I think people ignore is that BrandonM's comment was notable because it was voted to the top . Which means that the people reading and voting on the thread, at the time, thought it was the best reply. But no one will ever point a finger at them, because they're anonymous. They also have less chance for self-reflection - who remembers an upvote?
I hereby point a finger at the people who silently upvoted that comment