Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#41

Post by AJRF » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

"These transitions are never easy, but I’m determined to ensure that Dropbox is at the forefront of the AI era, just as we were at the forefront of the shift to mobile and the cloud. We’ll need all hands on deck as machine intelligence gives us the tools to reimagine our existing businesses and invent new ones. And I'm committed to doing everything in my power to best position ourselves for the future and unlock our full potential."

What has AI got to do with me putting my files in the cloud so I can sync them across my devices?

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#42

Post by afavour » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #18

> 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…

Compared to my mindset a decade ago I've become so cynical about the whole SV tech scene. There's value there, of course: Dropbox was a fantastic service when it first came out. But these companies are incentivized to keep expanding until they occupy the entire universe. Now Dropbox wants to be my word processor. Next it wants to use AI to touch up my photos or whatever the hell because AI is the New Hot Thing tech companies must do to please Wall Street. I'm tired of closing modal boxes promoting a service I never asked for.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#43

Post by travisgriggs » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

globalise83 wrote: post #24

smcl wrote: post #2

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…

Yes, I feel especially sorry for fired_employees[498] and fired_employees[499] who were just added to make the round number!

Or maybe happy for employees 501 through 504 who were on the chopping block, but because Round Numbers Are Nice(tm), got to keep their jobs!

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#44

Post by berkle4455 » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #18

> 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…

What if they had a little animated AI assistant that watched what you were doing and would say helpful things like “Hey! I see you’re writing a document, perhaps you should store that on Dropbox?” or “Hey! I see you’re making a meme, want to share that using Dropbox?”

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#45

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #21

neom wrote: post #14

"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

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#46

Post by smt88 » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

justeleblanc wrote: post #20

smcl wrote: post #2

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…

What makes you think that 500 is the actual, exact number? It's probably just an approximation used in that PR piece.

Layoff numbers are imprecise and somewhat arbitrary, so any number that isn't divisible by 10 is probably intentionally chosen to seem less arbitrary.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#47

Post by osigurdson » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

>> “ We’ve believed for many years that AI will give us new superpowers and completely transform knowledge work”

I’ve speculated that this is the rationale behind some of the recent layoffs. Finally we get some confirmation.

As a heavy OpenAI user, I think it is a premature optimization.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#48

Post by geodel » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #18

> 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…

> use ai to store files better?

I mean I wanted to store some old tax returns, medical bills and crap in DB, AI comes in and decides "bah, this is crap!", delete files silently to make space for more exciting stuff. Everyone is happy now!

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#49

Post by mattbrewsbytes » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #2

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…

There is a threshold of number of employees let go (maybe at location or total, I dunno) where they have to do certain things, called the WARN act. Companies aren't putting out press releases about layoffs because they want to.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#50

Post by neogodless » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #2

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 wondered if it could be possible to fire 500,000?

> I thought from one of the smaller companies no one would notice.

> Like one of the cab companies.

>> Fire one million.

> But 500,000...

> One million. Fine, sir.

> Sorry to have disturbed you.