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Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

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Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarify exactly what you mean by "demographic collapse."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline

> In the aftermath of World War I, birth rates in the United States and many European countries fell below replacement level. This prompted concern about population decline.[8] The recovery of the birth rate in most Western countries around 1940 that produced the "baby boom", with annual growth rates in the 1.0 – 1.5% range, and which peaked during the period 1962–1968 at 2.1% per year,[13] temporarily dispelled prior concerns about population decline, and the world was once again fearful of overpopulation. After 1968, the global population growth rate started a long decline. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) has reported that in the year 2023 it had dropped to about 0.9%,[13] less than half of its peak between 1962 and 1968. Although still growing, the UN predicts that global population will level out around 2084,[81] and some sources predict the start of a decline before then.

In other words, the last time everyone got worked up over this, the trend reversed itself too hard within a few decades, and then reversed itself again. Meanwhile, over half a century after the "decline" started, we have over twice as many people as we had when it started, and the earliest projections for when growth will stop is another half century from now. I think there are a lot bigger problems we'll need to reckon with before then, and if we manage to remain stable by then, it seems like we have good precedent for reversing it fairly quickly.

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at some point in the human civilization journey we'll have to be content with something instead of chasing clouds all the time. Surely we're not even close to this point though? I can think of a lot of things that would be incredibly good for humanity to have, and which are achievable with enough economic growth, but which we are currently very far from because our economy does not have the necessary productive cap…

What does any of that have to do with Dropbox?

If we stop chasing clouds, we'll have to go back to local offline storage!

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#293

Dropbox's stock has been stuck at around $6B valuation for years with flat growth and income around $2.5B per year. It is just stuck. Box.com, which is quite similar, is not that different. Around $3B and $1.2B in income. Similar valuation. I think it is the market, not the leadership. It is a tough market that has cut off the consumer end because all the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple…

I'm really not sure what Dropbox could even do other than have gone full swing towards a serious pivot or a new expansion into a new domain, but if they were going to do that they should have done that some years ago, if their current CEO stepping down alarms some of their existing customers, it might not end well. Dropbox is one of those companies that did something right, and its kind of sad seeing them in this wei…

> acquire a smaller complimentary but profitable company, or start building products that compliment their current offering

I think they've been doing that, but it's tough to do it successfully. Often the best thing is to return money to the shareholders so they can look for higher returns elsewhere. I think the fact that they're still in business is kind of a miracle considering the competition.

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure what Dropbox could even do other than have gone full swing towards a serious pivot or a new expansion into a new domain, but if they were going to do that they should have done that some years ago, if their current CEO stepping down alarms some of their existing customers, it might not end well. Dropbox is one of those companies that did something right, and its kind of sad seeing them in this wei…

Problem is most consumers and businesses would rather pay for 1 product that does 7 things ok than 7 products that do 1 thing great each. The former is cheaper and often is easier to cross-integrate - I'd rather just use AWS or GCP storage options than ever touch drop box

> would rather pay for 1 product that does 7 things ok than 7 products that do 1 thing great each

See Microsoft/Office 365. Aggressive bundling means one license gets you literally everything. Sure, it's all mediocre but it checks boxes and is largely "good enough." No reason to go out and buy slack, zoom, box.com/dropbox, 3rd party email gateways, 3rd party EDR, DLP, an MDM, etc. Microsoft will sell you whatever "checks boxes" product you need under one license and cheaper than buying separately.

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#295

Dropbox's stock has been stuck at around $6B valuation for years with flat growth and income around $2.5B per year. It is just stuck. Box.com, which is quite similar, is not that different. Around $3B and $1.2B in income. Similar valuation. I think it is the market, not the leadership. It is a tough market that has cut off the consumer end because all the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple…

Is that bad though? Think about it. If you're paying all your bills, all your wages, and you have a strong product that people enjoy, and you're able to compete in the market - maybe not gaining any ground, but at least not losing any either - why change? Of course I moderately understand the market pressures at work, but at some point in the human civilization journey we'll have to be content with something instead…

In the current economic system, if capital is not growing, it’s reducing.

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#296
post #231
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a strange outdated idea. Stay where you are and start paying dividends? Well, somehow that is now unacceptable idea.

Unfortunately this is the case when a company is beholden to investors. Investors aren't getting into the business of "making a steady stream of money without outsized growth" unless you are Warren Buffett. Most investors are focused on multiplying their investment many times over, and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in net income a year is not big enough. And this is one reason why the world is burning (l…

i like how on the internet you can just say things

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#297

Dropbox's stock has been stuck at around $6B valuation for years with flat growth and income around $2.5B per year. It is just stuck. Box.com, which is quite similar, is not that different. Around $3B and $1.2B in income. Similar valuation. I think it is the market, not the leadership. It is a tough market that has cut off the consumer end because all the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple…

> the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple (iCloud), Google (Drive), Microsoft (OneDrive). So Steve Jobs was right: Dropbox is a feature, not a product.

Poor Drew, if only he’d taken Steve’s advice! /s

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it really is too bad. All of the major tech companies' competitors are junk. Google Drive is the least bad of the bunch (out of, say, OneDrive, iCloud, and formerly Amazon Drive), but it's still not great to deal with. DropBox really does do a great job

OneDrive used to be rubbish but nowadays it's reliable. We use it at work and I don't feel any pressure to move to Dropbox. It's also much cheaper.

OneDrive is awful.

Why are my files I created on my local device not on my device

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that bad though? Think about it. If you're paying all your bills, all your wages, and you have a strong product that people enjoy, and you're able to compete in the market - maybe not gaining any ground, but at least not losing any either - why change? Of course I moderately understand the market pressures at work, but at some point in the human civilization journey we'll have to be content with something instead…

It's not necessarily bad, but in tech, not actively growing is tantamount to shrinking. Organic customer churn and attrition means that you're just a few years away from irrelevance. If DBX wants to stay a stable tech company, it should figure out a way to go private.

Yeah but in a market where the current suppliers are satisfying demand, I feel like the churn just means your customers will go across the metaphorical street to the other guy, and you likewise have the opportunity to bring in someone from a competitor. So you still, of course, need to invest in marketing and retention, but as a means to maintain stability, not to grow forever. The cloud storage market feels pretty mature, so customers are going to be constantly shopping around for the best deal, or the best support contract, or whatever.

Re: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down

#300

Dropbox's stock has been stuck at around $6B valuation for years with flat growth and income around $2.5B per year. It is just stuck. Box.com, which is quite similar, is not that different. Around $3B and $1.2B in income. Similar valuation. I think it is the market, not the leadership. It is a tough market that has cut off the consumer end because all the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple…

> all the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions

This is exactly why I use Dropbox. I use a single Dropbox account for my family. It's setup with photo sync on our phones so we can automatically share photos together. It's also setup on the printer/scanner so scanned documents are accessible to everyone. We keep documents in it that we can all access when needed. We also access the data through our file browser on our computers.

I feel my use case is simple but it's impossible to do this with the big players due to integration.

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