31–40 of 413 posts
"As the world moved from physical film to digital photography, or from land lines to wireless communication, or from DVD rentals to streaming, opportunity and disruption went hand-in-hand. Companies that embraced a new reality and took decisive action did well. Companies that held onto the past or tried to have it all did not. These transitions are never easy, but I’m determined to ensure that Dropbox is at the foref…
> In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we'll need even more. Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatg…
I could see value in using a chat-like interface with dropbox:
> "Give me the budget for the R&D team from 2019"
Nice, round number. I wonder if that was a carefully thought out coincidence, or they fiddled with the numbers a bit until they got the right payroll savings then rounded it to the nearest 100. I suspect the latter - when I see a nice, round number of people being fired it makes me think that they decided "how many people do we need to sacrifice to appease the finance gods" rather than "how many of these roles are re…
They're just following the trend, or listening to the ridiculous demands of investors following the trend.
"As the world moved from physical film to digital photography, or from land lines to wireless communication, or from DVD rentals to streaming, opportunity and disruption went hand-in-hand. Companies that embraced a new reality and took decisive action did well. Companies that held onto the past or tried to have it all did not. These transitions are never easy, but I’m determined to ensure that Dropbox is at the foref…
> In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we'll need even more. Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatg…
That's a much leaner headcount than what I would expect for a company with as large a market footprint as Dropbox.
> In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we'll need even more. Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatg…
Nice, round number. I wonder if that was a carefully thought out coincidence, or they fiddled with the numbers a bit until they got the right payroll savings then rounded it to the nearest 100. I suspect the latter - when I see a nice, round number of people being fired it makes me think that they decided "how many people do we need to sacrifice to appease the finance gods" rather than "how many of these roles are re…
> it makes me think that they decided "how many people do we need to sacrifice to appease the finance gods" rather than "how many of these roles are really needed to achieve the goals we set ourselves".
Any big layoff involves, or is possibly the result of, shifting goals. Company goals change, especially as changing economics makes them more or less possible.
Also, what were these 500 people doing anyway? Dropbox has basically been the same product for years.
"As the world moved from physical film to digital photography, or from land lines to wireless communication, or from DVD rentals to streaming, opportunity and disruption went hand-in-hand. Companies that embraced a new reality and took decisive action did well. Companies that held onto the past or tried to have it all did not. These transitions are never easy, but I’m determined to ensure that Dropbox is at the foref…
Because AI is what you need to store your files... AI is super cool, but at least for storage of my files in the cloud I prefer something "dumb" to be honest