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Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

cnbc.com

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Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#271

Post by frivoal »

notwhereyouare wrote: post #236

I understand it's a management decision, but I'm curious as to why companies don't really start with "hey, we need to lay off 11%. Who here would like to volunteer. Here are the perks we are going to offer" See how many that gets you. Then again, that might get you more than 11% if you aren't careful.

This would encourage the people who have the most options to leave, and those with the least to stay. This isn't necessarily the same, but is likely to be very similar to encouraging your best employees to leave, the worst ones to stay.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#272

Post by shmoogy »

cgearhart wrote: post #194
jedberg wrote: post #168

This is interesting because having layoffs at a company that should be going off like a rocket during a pandemic is odd. What is going on at Dropbox that prevented them from taking advantage of the huge shift to remote work?

I think Box ate their lunch in the corporate sphere and they have a lot more competition in the consumer space from things like OneDrive and iCloud Drive. The only reason I still have Dropbox at all is because I don’t have a reason to pull the plug—and it wouldn’t have to be much of an excuse.

I actually just moved all my stuff from Dropbox to B2 buckets. My December bill was like $0.09

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#273

Post by asddubs »

jeffbee wrote: post #244
mdoms wrote: post #210

These egotistical CEOs need to work on how to deliver difficult news without making so much of it about how hard it is on themselves. > This is a hard message for me to send > This is one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in my 14 years as CEO No one asked how you feel, Drew. You'll be fine.

Drew has always been this self-centered. About a year ago he got up in front of the whole company to whine about how engineers are eating too many potato chips from the kitchen, announcing "belt tightening". Completely ridiculous statements from a multibillionaire. Around the same time the company paid out very little of nominal bonus plan. I quit over the bonus fiasco and many other people in my area left at the sam…

haha, did this actually happen? i imagine him being in the kitchen discovering the empty remains of the last bag of potato chips immediately prior.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#274

Post by mprovost »

lacker wrote: post #248
notwhereyouare wrote: post #236

I understand it's a management decision, but I'm curious as to why companies don't really start with "hey, we need to lay off 11%. Who here would like to volunteer. Here are the perks we are going to offer" See how many that gets you. Then again, that might get you more than 11% if you aren't careful.

That way you lose the people who have the best prospects elsewhere, often your top employees. This way you can pick which 11% you least want to keep.

Yup this is known as the Dead Sea Effect [0]. Your best people leave and you're left with the worst performers. Do this a few times and you end up with a barely functioning organisation.

[0] http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#275

Post by manigandham »

polote wrote: post #107
manigandham wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company is nowhere near failing. It's just not necessary to be as big as it is. Dropbox still has the best sync technology by far, however they failed to really capitalize on a single market. The consumer side cares more about value and it's hard to compete with Microsoft/Apple/Google while the business side is already well-served by Box.com. I still think there's a good opportunity if they can build on storage t…

> Dropbox still has the best sync by far than any other system This is a common dev thought. But almost no company in the world is going to care about that. You can onboard some consumer with that point but I hope they don't actually try to sign companies using that.

Of course it doesn't matter if it's just used for syncing some office files but Dropbox is common in creative fields like video production and visual effects where sync performance is a real selling point.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#276

Post by snicksnak »

I remember when I first heard of dropbox, I just started college and all my peers started sharing their space race challenge links to get 25gb free, must be ~8 years ago. Service was great for exchanging notes and other studying related material. By then 25gb felt like a lot. However fast forward two years, the 25gb free plan ran out if you didn't convert to a pro plan, which I don't think anyone I knew did, because by then the university caught on and provided their own free NAS up to 100GB. Also if you purchased an office 365 student license you got 1TB free for a couple years. I used those services a lot during college, but there was never a need for me to go for any pro plan. Haven't used dropbox since I graduated several years ago.

I've always thought dropbox must make their revenue in B2B because spending hundreds of dollars for cloud for storage a year as an individual never made sense to me.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#277

Post by pnw_hazor »

blinkingled wrote: post #185
tptacek wrote: post #166

"6 months of COBRA" presumably means Dropbox will pay 6 months of COBRA premiums for departed team members? COBRA has a statutory duration much longer than 6 months.

They could have just said continued healthcare for 6 months - that's got to be a lot better than paying for 6 months of COBRA.

The group plan covers employees. Former employees are not going to be eligible. Though the company can pay the COBRA premiums for the same coverage fairly seamlessly.

I was part of a group that split from a company, our new company paid COBRA premiums for our people until we set up our own group plan for the next year.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#278

Post by Smilliam »

notwhereyouare wrote: post #236

I understand it's a management decision, but I'm curious as to why companies don't really start with "hey, we need to lay off 11%. Who here would like to volunteer. Here are the perks we are going to offer" See how many that gets you. Then again, that might get you more than 11% if you aren't careful.

The issue with this approach is that the company then leaves itself vulnerable to a big brain drain. If the bulk of those volunteers end up being your best seniors/leads who know they can just go down the street and pick up another job at comparable comp all while getting a cozy three month vacation that you're bankrolling...well, it's easy to see how you could be left in a much worse position imo.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#280

Post by draw_down »

Sorry to hear it. I was thinking this would be another BLM/anti-rabble-rabble post about saving our democracy and all that jazz. Now I wish it was that.

I fundamentally agree with Steve Jobs's take about this company, though I'd prefer to feel otherwise. I respect that they have been trying to find their way out of that pit; I really enjoy Dropbox Paper and use it at work most days. I just don't think it will be enough for them, but I hope to be wrong about that.

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