Closed lower...
It closed at $28.42, more than 35% above the offer price of $21. In comparison, the S&P tech index was down nearly 3%. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dropbox-ipo/dropbox-share...
Open for mortals was $29.00
Congrats Dropbox
251–260 of 285 posts
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#252This is nice from a business-perspective. But, stepping back ... I'm sure that a lot of the folks here would agree that something as basic as file-sync should be a standard part of any OS, and follow a non-proprietary protocol. So whereas they have turned something that should have been a commodity into a profitable business, I'm not sure what we have achieved here.
Drew and Arash went to MIT, where their everyday computing environment was UNIX systems with home directories on AFS. For those who haven't used it, AFS is a networked filesystem sort of like NFS, except with a better authentication model and the ability to support failover on the server side. AFS, NFS, Coda, 9P, WebDAV, SMB/CIFS, FTP, Windows roaming profiles, AFP, etc. were all around and (to varying levels) built…
Doesn't AFS keep local copies of files too?
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#253Thank 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 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…
This may be the most civil discussion I've ever seen on the web. Spread out over 11 years! Amazing. I love HN.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#254Congratulations! What a consistent drama free run. Also, resisted an acquisition offer from Steve Jobs!
How was it drama-free? There was a #DeleteDropbox campaign after they hired Condoleezza Rice, widely considered to be a war criminal (especially outside US conservative circles) and definitely a proponent of domestic spying programs.
Yeah that is the sole reason neither me and mine do not have a Dropbox account to this day, and why I would not consider applying there
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#255I made my account around Fall 2007 as a high school student. It completely changed how I did things and I'm still a happy user all these years later (and still have access to my poorly-written high school papers!).
Congrats!
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#256Honest question: What about Sean Ellis? Maybe I am mis-remembering, but wasn't he the person behind the "invite for more storage" growth marketing effort that really helped propel Dropbox to mainstream use?
What exactly is your question? He, like other early employees, is probably sitting on a nice bundle of common stock that he will be able to sell X months after the IPO.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#257Earlier 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…
3rd point (viral): The dropbox solution was great, of users getting more dropbox when they brought in another user. By rewarding with more dropbox (instead of money), only people who genuinely value dropbox would spread it. These aligned interests can't be gamed. I thought dropbox was a great idea from the very beginning... but I've been repeatedly amazed at the scale of the opportunity. People working cross-mobile/d…
> but I've been repeatedly amazed at the scale of the opportunity. People working cross-mobile/desktop must be a big part of it.
Or just multiple computers. Also don't forget file sharing and collaboration.
I'm a long-time Dropbox user, and my first use cases were, in order:
- shared folders with friends at university, when we were working on projects together
- shared folder for myself between personal computer and a station at work
Nowadays I use it mostly as a way to sync up my time/task tracking (in Emacs/org-mode) between multiple machines and mobile devices.
OTOH, my SO regularly uses Dropbox at work to exchange bundles of 200+MB files with other companies, and it's telling - there really is no better, safer solution for a regular user to send someone larger files when they no longer fit in an e-mail.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#258I've said it before and I'll say it again: Dropbox is the first app I'll install on any new device. It works on all relevant platforms and is getting more and more integrated with other platforms (Google Docs, Office) all while remaining platform agnostic. Once I reach my free limit (roughly 7 GB) I will gladly pay for their service. Congrats to Drew, Arash, and the Dropbox team!
I'm already paying for it. Partly because I can't be bothered to clean up the clutter I keep on it, which would easily get me back down to free tier - but partly because I got so much value from using Dropbox that it's only fair to give back.
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#259Thank 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 :)
Here's a link to the actual presentation https://web.archive.org/web/20100817162301/http://dl-web.dro...
which presentation is it to whom? to get into ycombinator?!?!
Re: Congrats Dropbox
#260Thank 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 :)
Here's a link to the actual presentation https://web.archive.org/web/20100817162301/http://dl-web.dro...
The response when he shared the file on his messenger was "why are you sending me this crap" :)) so funny if this was part of the original presentation of what would become dropbox.