191–200 of 413 posts
The startup I was at recently laid of 15%. I'm pretty sure it wasn't for (public) optics, because the layoff didn't get any press coverage.
And based on the startup's business, I very much doubt the layoff was triggered by ChatGPT's success.
My best guess would be behind-the-scenes VC strategizing, but this is happening even with publicly traded companies like DropBox.
Earlier 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…
> snark incoming - Imagine thinking you understand the product strategy for a 14 year old, publicly traded company with thousands of employees without working there or having any sort of insider knowledge. Snark incoming. Imaging a society so shitty that you have to try to "understand the product strategy for a 14 year old publicly traded company" That is, one society in which companies dont go about their business,…
Meh. You could've said the same thing about companies leveraging dot-com, or going mobile first. All these were a net gain for investors and society.
"The future is now old man."
Earlier 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…
Having worked in this industry for two decades (and a Dropbox user since its public launch) the "product strategy" of most of these companies is close to just spitballing. If you want a recent example you can look at Facebook lighting almost $40 billion with their Metaverse product. To add to that, Product leadership at technology companies has evolved to be much less technical, so they aren't going to have any deep…
That’s only because it failed (and the jury is still out on that). If it works they’ll conquer an entirely new market right from the start.
Certainly a much better long term strategy than hoping they can keep up their advertising revenue.
Earlier 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…
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, bu…
The current “wave” of AI and deep learning and whatnot has been going on for almost a decade, longer than blockchain and definitely longer than NFTs if you ask me. Not saying that it’s not overhyped, but it’s definitely not a new hype.
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…
> Nice, round number. 500 is also a businessy-salesy round number, compared to 512 which is what an engineer would have considered a round number. Gives some clues as to where the number came from.
> 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…
Then you go on saying this is a common strategy and is well suited?
Do you understand the strategy or is your comment as worthless as you suggest in your first paragraph?
Understanding product strategies are part of many users day to day lives. Don't dismiss everyone and put them on your level of understanding.
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…
Earlier 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…
Having worked in this industry for two decades (and a Dropbox user since its public launch) the "product strategy" of most of these companies is close to just spitballing. If you want a recent example you can look at Facebook lighting almost $40 billion with their Metaverse product. To add to that, Product leadership at technology companies has evolved to be much less technical, so they aren't going to have any deep…
In an enterprise, it can be extremely difficult to ensure your permissions are what you want them to be: that people can share things easily with the right groups, but also that sensitive data is not inadvertently exposed. Dropbox in particular excels at sharing documents with others outside your company, but that is also where there is obviously the most risk.
Currently, I find Dropbox's enterprise permissions management tools pretty difficult to use. There are loads of options and it's too easy to get something "wrong" if you inadvertently miss checking the right checkbox. It's not hard for me to see how AI tools could help improve this situation, and especially to provide additional capabilities in the DLP (data loss prevention) space that would make it easier to detect misconfigured access.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, bu…
You should call yourself lucky - I search in my Google Photos for something generic like "sunset" and I get 2 pictures if I'm lucky. No idea why... :(