101–109 of 109 posts
Then come Chris, Jason and Joe (who has a Dropbox tattoo on his arm because he feels “Drew is changing the world”), more MIT brothers aiming to live a California dream they all imagined back in Cambridge as “billionaires, bottles and babes.” Eww, that's offputting.
Might as well say vast swaths of all young men are off-putting. These are pretty standard motivations (though usually not stated so bluntly + publicly).
I've been an entrepreneur ever since I can remember. And, retrospectively, I know that I did a lot of dumb things when I was younger. It takes a while to develop the business smarts, thick skin and, if you will, intestinal fortitude a business requires. I've experienced business issues as I got older that I know would have totally decimated me when I was younger. You are simply not prepared for that sort of thing. Particularly things like impending catastrophic failure, when you need to be mentally and emotionally in your strongest mode.
Barely-out-of-teenage-years entrepreneurs (not meant with disrespect at all, just chronological fact) need a support system in order to stay the course, learn and not derail. That's why I think that in these cases the multiple founder "rule" is probably a very good idea.
I would say that older solo founders with previous skin in the game are probably a good bet (all else being equal). One young founder thrown into the jungle that business can become is probably a formula for almost certain failure.
While, of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, I do think that what I am saying is a reasonable characterization of the problem.
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Never mind. I see it. http://developer.apple.com/icloud/index.php Does DropBox have anything similar? This looks like something that will run over DropBox.
http://www.dropbox.com/developers_beta
The next question: think iCloud -- or DropBox even -- will provide Google Wave technology? I have no idea how useful that would be to all apps. But it would benefit an app such as Ulysses.
Ulysses markets itself as a writer's editor. (To my programmer's eyes, it looks more like an IDE). It distinguishes itself in the market with a very strong document management system. However, it does not have auto-save, and the backups are kept in some obscure location. That's ripe for iCloud or Dropbox integration. However, it can go farther -- some method to sync changes with editors and proofers without having to export to Word.
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Have they improved on their lack of security yet? I'd recommend using wuala for work documents as they offer client side encryption, if you don't mind having java around.
This actually scares me a lot about dropbox. I've had clients share very sensitive documents and code via an emailed dropbox link. If you are in charge of security, dropbox is a data-loss prevention nightmare. It's too easy to share things. I can only imagine what kind of IP dropbox has access to.
None of my data is life and death critical - so I dont fret too much about security.
I expect that Dropbox will get better, and the service is just invaluable to how we work.
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We've been told they do encrypt files internally. I don't think there is any usable way to have users manage their keys by themselves. Who wants to input large encryption keys to their mobile phone every time they want to use Dropbox? And if the phone remembers the key, then it's not too far from the current situation.
"My phone stores my private key" is very, very far from "Dropbox's servers can see all my data".
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"My phone stores my private key" is very, very far from "Dropbox's servers can see all my data".
Certainly, but the practical privacy implications are probably similar. In case of a stolen phone, the thief has access to all the files in both of these cases. Sure it would be cool if Dropbox wouldn't have any access to our files, but I don't see how it would happen without eroding the usability. It could be an opt-in feature of course.
Jobs never changed his interpretation of things. He did in fact feel cloud storage was a feature and not a product, and that's exactly what iCloud is. For Apple it's a feature that will hopefully tie people in to their iOS devices. And with the likelihood that over time they will offer greater amounts of storage for free or a minimum payment, that's not good for Dropbox. I like Dropbox, I use it almost daily. But so…
I love dropbox - and I just recently switched to a paid account. I have gotten my whole team on it - we have a virtual team of 10 consultants all working from our homes. Dropbox is key to keeping everything between us shared. We haven't yet gone for the Team account - but we will be doing so shortly. It is expensive - but the simplicity and value it offers it (so far) unmatched.
You have files on the cloud and get version control for free.
Unless of course all your stuff is huge binaries and you don't care about versioning.
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The dividing line between stupid and brilliant is usually determined retrospectively.
Exactly look at the Groupon/Google situation (which is still to be determined in my opinion)