Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#291

Post by dgellow » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #266

dgellow wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For individuals Dropbox is quite expensive compared to services like OneDrive. Microsoft 365 Personal is 70$/year and gives you 1TB on OneDrive and full access to the Office offering. Dropbox for individuals is 200$/year for 3TB. And nothing else. Unless you're hoarding data or want to avoid Microsoft, the choice is simple. And I'm sure you have even cheaper services.

Not entirely accurate. I didn’t even realize this was a thing, but on the Dropbox web interface you can now open docs, slideshows and spreadsheets in either Office365 or Google Office without accounts on either.

Oh, I didn’t know this. Thanks for sharing

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#292

Post by TheCoelacanth » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

tickthokk wrote: post #242

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.

Yes! If I'd just been fired, the last thing I would care about are their feelings, and how my firing is part of the "strategic goal" I am no longer involved in. He also mentioned taking full responsibility. That line should have been followed by how he did that. Pay reduction for himself? Upper management?

They don't really care what the people they're firing think as long as they aren't upset enough to sue or cause other problems.

Messaging like this is for the people who are still at the company. Talking about "strategic goals" is trying to reassure them that the company isn't on verge of collapse.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#293

Post by rahul_nyc » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

Starting this Google doc to help these people who got laid off today. If you or someone you know has lost their job today, add your details below

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hqa6XQEodjs4JkwPcsls...

To individuals: If are looking for any employment and are open to sharing it to be discovered, please put your information here:

To companies: If you are looking to hire, please check out and reach out to any of the talented individuals below.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#294

Post by pnw_hazor » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #207

sharps_xp wrote: post #158

you know what doesn’t get talked about: severence. why do we need it? why do employers give it? should one negotiate it? what is fair/unfair?

Employers give it for one of three reasons: 1. It was negotiated as part of your job offer. (It is too late to try to negotiate it at any other time.) 2. It provides a lever for future behavior. "By accepting this severance payment, you agree not to sue THE COMPANY for any reason, and not to disparage THE COMPANY, and ..." 3. It makes the employer look reasonable to current and future employees. "Laid off 11% of the…

While severance benefits may help with company goodwill or assuage the feelings of the survivors, I believe the real reason is mostly number 2.

Exit aggreements almost always come with liability/discrimination disclaimers and usually new or updated language related to disclosures, company equipment, digital access, IP rights, non-compete language, and so on. Tying the exit agreement to new money provides the necessary consideration to establish a valid contract.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#295

Post by Simulacra » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

Smilliam wrote: post #278

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.

The high performers, the people who make money for the company, are rarely the first to be let go.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#296

Post by mod » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #241

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.

If no emotion was expressed, I think they'd face criticism for being cold and calculated.

The emotions you express are perhaps empathy, compassion, and regret.

Emotions about the affected people, not about how hard it has been on you personally.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#297

Post by johnbrodie » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

I_complete_me wrote: post #284

weeboid wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near future, storage will be a home appliance, with networking and command-and-control. As simple to use as a microwave, unlimited storage with service plans similar to changing water filters.

I agree. This week I set up my Nextcloud on a remote server and will probably get a home appliance eventually. I don't detect any sarcasm. Am I naive?

I did the same thing over the past few weeks, along with some other self-hosted apps to get rid of as many SaaS dependencies as possible, DropBox being one of them. Fairly easy to install, but someone would need to write the "glue" to piece everything together for it to really take off.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#298

Post by whoisjuan » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

I just sold my position on DBX. I used to be bullish on Dropbox and I'm a loyal user, but the reality is that Wall Street doesn't appreciate this space given how commoditized it has become.

Unfortunately I have started to believe them. There's really no recent breaktroughs or interesting bets coming from Dropbox. Also the fact that migration is as simple as dropping their folder into the folder of something like Drive or iCloud makes that supposedly sticky factor not real.

Paradoxically what was their UX breakthrough will be their demise, given how easy is to migrate out.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#299

Post by avrionov » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

Dropbox and Evernote, for me are two very similar companies. Startups that innovated on a great user experience and had a flawless execution in the beginning. I was an early adopter of both of them, and they worked well. Dropbox sync between different machines worked like magic. I still remember some of the nightmares my coworkers had with OneDrive in meetings when the files for the presentations were missing because of the poor sync capabilities of OneDrive. Dropbox is no failure. Their projected revenue for 2020 is $1.8B. This is 3x more than Slack, but their market cap is 3x smaller. Both Slack and Evernote are facing the most powerful companies in the world offering their products for free or at really discounted rates. What makes their situation even worse is that they don't own the content (documents, pdfs, spreadsheets). The documents will be edited somewhere else and then shared in dropbox. On top of that many other applications like chat offer file transfer and sharing.

Bottom line: I don't want them to fail ( I don't want Evernote to fail too), because it points to a world where only 5 to 10 big tech companies can survive. We need smaller innovative businesses to succeed too. It will be a sad day when a $2B business can't survive and is forced to sell.

Re: Dropbox to cut 11% of its global workforce

#300

Post by ubermonkey » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

simplemen wrote: post #226

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?

At one time, Dropbox was the easiest and best solution if you were using Android, MacOS, and Windows. I used to pay for 1TB account although Apple offered 2TB for same monthly fee. But the Dropbox destroyed their simple UI to this ugliness clusterfuck. That was the motivation for me to cancel it and move 100% into Apple's ecosystem.

I'm still not sure what I could migrate to that would give me solid and trustworthy sync/access across Windows, Mac, iOS, and Linux.

I'm happy to pay whatever I pay for Dropbox -- I don't actually remember what it is -- but I'd rather they stop throwing in bullshit kitchen-sink features.