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Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
71–80 of 413 posts
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#72> 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…
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Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#73> 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…
In the AI world, files will be created at a volume never before seen. Personal collections of files will matter less in this new limit. Dropbox probably sees the writing on the wall and may want to reconfigure itself to catch the upside.
Imagine selling Rolodex in the post-email era.
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#74> 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…
Its bs.
If every company is doing AI it sort of sounds similar to the ICO/coin phase of crypto hype curve and the every company having a dotcom/ecommerce department of the dot com boom/bust (which is actually the case nowadays). Because AI has more respect in tech circles than crypto did I suspect people aren't calling BS as much. It could very well be that in X years a lot of companies have AI doing bot types of work. It could also be a lot of if..then..ifelse or document search index stuff with "AI" lipstick on it.
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatgpt released, and then laying off 16% of your company to.. use ai to store files better? I really don’t see how new ai capabilities lead to big layoffs and new opportunities for Dropbox snark incoming - Imagine thinking you understand the product strategy for a 14 year old, publicly traded company with thousands of employees without working t…
The most real HN comment I've seen in years.
HN is becoming a meme, kind of like how HN used to write off Reddit.
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#76The AI thing is transparently a fake excuse that will pass the sniff test for their finance department. Also, what were these 500 people doing anyway? Dropbox has basically been the same product for years.
> Dropbox has basically been the same product for years.
I'm assuming you're just talking about your personal experience with their consumer product, because this statement is laughably false. Dropbox has made a tons of changes and acquisitions to beef up their enterprise offerings, which is clearly where they've been focused, and where the money is.
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#77> 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…
> Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatgpt released, and then laying off 16% of your company to.. use ai to store files better? I really don’t see how new ai capabilities lead to big layoffs and new opportunities for Dropbox snark incoming - Imagine thinking you understand the product strategy for a 14 year old, publicly traded company with thousands of employees without working t…
It's a public company, isn't it?
So we can just point out it's strategies on it's latest 10k filing, where it's investments have been and where it's gets it's money from?
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#78Dropbox have 3000+ employees according to Google fiance. do you need that many people to run a online file storage service?
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 c…
You’re not the target customer. A lot of people do use those tools, although most of them are outside of the tech world. You’d probably be better off using a different service if it bothers you so much.
We’ll I just realised I can use iCloud or Google drive for like 1/10th the cost of Dropbox ?
Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff
#80> 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…
> and then laying off 16% of your company to.. use ai to store files better? I really don’t see how new ai capabilities lead to big layoffs and new opportunities for Dropbox. Dropbox moved beyond basic file sharing long ago. I don’t personally use all of their productivity tools, but I know a lot of people (generally business/creatives) who do. If you try to interpret this through the lens of “Dropbox just stores fil…
> Dropbox moved beyond basic file sharing long ago.
File syncing and storage is a feature rather than a full product, these days. Microsoft and Google have made sure of that. You need something more to compete. So, it makes sense that Dropbox went in that direction.