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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

#201

Post by jstarfish »

geodel wrote: post #48
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!

Hopefully the AI would come in and shame you for storing tax returns in cloud storage.

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

#202

Post by overrun11 »

ilyt wrote: post #178
pdntspa wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really tired of how everyone is always trying to take over the world. Can a utility just stay a utility?

Not if company is publicly traded or has investors. Only companies where owner is top boss can, sometimes. The moment boss has to answer to investors, growth is required.

Not convinced this is because of investors. Investors want high returns on invested capital and these growth initiatives are often the opposite of that (see Meta's Metaverse play which investors hated). Executives want to empire build at the expense of both employee stability AND shareholder returns.

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

#203

Post by passion__desire »

thesimon wrote: post #82
ignoramous wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an example: Dropbox can answer questions from the documents you've shared with them. They stand a good chance as anyone else to build a "personal chatgpt" / "enterprise chatgpt". Dropbox is also big on photos, I believe, the latest advancements give them a shot at taking on Google Photos.

But how can you be certain that the answer is actually correct instead of just sounding correct? ChatGPT can come up with completely made-up answers that just seem right.

By citing references? which were used to generate the answer.

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

#204

Post by qsort »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #199
spamizbad wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'll add my 2c because I'm getting a little annoyed that folks who only have familiarity with Dropbox's consumer offering seem to think they have any idea what they're talking about. 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 par…

> There are loads of options and it's too easy to get something "wrong" if you inadvertently miss checking the right checkbox.

This seems the exact opposite of what the current crop of AI is good at.

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

#205

Post by nytesky »

rybosworld wrote: post #110
Hamcha wrote: post #93

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…

> we JUST finished having every company try to pivot to blockchain and NFT I really don't think there are many existing companies that "pivoted" to blockchain and NFT. Certainly not a majority.

Well Meta tried to make its own crypto currency on the block chain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diem_(digital_currency)

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

#206

Post by Thrymr »

ramraj07 wrote: post #179
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…

I’d love to be able to just ask dropbox what my passport number is, or to find the file my auditor gave me last year with recommendations.

Do you think the ability to recall private information like that will more valuable to you, the user, or to data aggregators, advertisers, and service providers? Is there enough extra revenue in expanding services to Dropbox users, or will they inevitably become another data scraping company (perhaps with a veneer of "anonymization" to supposedly protect your privacy)?

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

#207

Post by passion__desire »

hbn wrote: post #169
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.

Google One's tiers are better, but they're still kinda nonsense. The first 2 paid tiers are 100GB and 200GB which are fine. But then you have to jump up 3.5x the cost to 2TB. Why can't they just offer finely-tuned increments of 100GB? Or even 50GB or 25GB. I'm mindful with what I put on cloud storage (mainly photo/video backups with Google Photos). I'm fine bumping up as I use more, but I don't feel like you suddenly…

You want per mb pricing like AWS has per second billing on their EC2 machines?

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

#208

Post by yadascript »

ramraj07 wrote: post #179
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…

I’d love to be able to just ask dropbox what my passport number is, or to find the file my auditor gave me last year with recommendations.

Would you use the passport number without double checking it ?

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

#209

Post by AH4oFVbPT4f8 »

hbn wrote: post #169
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.

Google One's tiers are better, but they're still kinda nonsense. The first 2 paid tiers are 100GB and 200GB which are fine. But then you have to jump up 3.5x the cost to 2TB. Why can't they just offer finely-tuned increments of 100GB? Or even 50GB or 25GB. I'm mindful with what I put on cloud storage (mainly photo/video backups with Google Photos). I'm fine bumping up as I use more, but I don't feel like you suddenly…

Do you worry about Google dropping and discontinuing the service ?

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

#210

Post by phpisthebest »

Hamcha wrote: post #93
rco8786 wrote: post #54

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…

They key to success will be AI driven block chain with machine learning crypto.
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