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

blog.dropbox.com

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

#91

Post by activitypea »

rco8786 wrote: post #54
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…

> 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…

[flagged]

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

#92

Post by meling »

afavour wrote: post #42
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 c…

Totally agree… I wish I could buy Dropbox’s minimal feature set: syncing files. And that they’d improve that feature rather than adding features I don’t use or want.

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

#93

Post by Hamcha »

rco8786 wrote: post #54
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…

> 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…

I can understand some of the skepticism, we JUST finished having every company try to pivot to blockchain and NFT and now it seems history is repeating with AI.

However, I also totally see the point, as an example: the biggest reason I like Google Photos is the automagic tagging on the pictures, I can just write any random description and it usually finds them across 10+ years of photos I have stored (not perfect, but good enough), I can see AI replicating if not even augmenting such functionalities.

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

#96

Post by westmeal »

bamboozled wrote: post #75
fallat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like playing this game where I count the amount of tech buzzwords per top comment in a post and try to guess before clicking on it to see how close I was.

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

#97

Post by LightHugger »

AJRF wrote: post #41

"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…

They will use AI to scan your files so that they can do things with the resulting harvested data.

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

#98

Post by brianwawok »

avnfish wrote: post #25

I recently migrated from Dropbox to Google One. I find Dropbox's personal pricing really baffling: you get 2 GB for free or have to move all the way up to 2 TB and pay £100 a year. 100GB for £16 via Google is a much more sensible offer.

They don't have the scale of customers to profit from £16. Compare how many people in the world use google per day vs dropbox.

When you have less scale, you need to charge a bit more for your initial level.

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

#99

Post by pdntspa »

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…

Really tired of how everyone is always trying to take over the world.

Can a utility just stay a utility?

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

#100

Post by never_inline »

Raed667 wrote: post #32
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…

Maybe it is about search ? I could see value in using a chat-like interface with dropbox: > "Give me the budget for the R&D team from 2019"

I can't see this being their moat though.

Google and Microsoft can do much outcompete them with their storage SaaS products.

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