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Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

fortune.com

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Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#11

Post by imron »

pen2l wrote: post #10
flunhat wrote: post #9

They've come a long way from their Show HN 10 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 From a demo hacked together over a few months (written in Python, IIRC) and posted on HN to an IPO. Pretty cool, honestly.

I would be soooooo happy if I got to see the code that began it. Does it happen to available anywhere?

According to the original comments "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#12

Post by justboxing »

pen2l wrote: post #10
flunhat wrote: post #9

They've come a long way from their Show HN 10 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 From a demo hacked together over a few months (written in Python, IIRC) and posted on HN to an IPO. Pretty cool, honestly.

I would be soooooo happy if I got to see the code that began it. Does it happen to available anywhere?

Not sure about the code, but here's the original Demo Video Drew had on their getdropbox.com landing page. It presents the features in a very entertaining way :)

[ Sep 15th 2008 ] DropBox Demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#13

Post by badsock »

macspoofing wrote: post #7
visarga wrote: post #2

In other words, getting ready to become more selfish from now on. Is Condoleezza Rice still working for Dropbox?

Oh grow up.

I don't agree with visarga's first sentence. But I don't think it's childish to want a war criminal to be held to some account. More than 100,000 civilians died in that conflict, and Rice played a key role in knowingly selling the lies that lead to their deaths.

She deserves prison, and the founders and board of Dropbox deserve to be hounded for their complicity in her escape from any negative consequence resulting from her actions.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#14

Post by ant6n »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Replace everybody's hard-drive with a dropbox, shared across every device they own.

Why shouldn't they IPO, it's basically the last funding round? Even if they were done growing and ready to start paying dividends now, what would be bad about that?

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#15

Post by ryanlol »

imron wrote: post #11
pen2l wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be soooooo happy if I got to see the code that began it. Does it happen to available anywhere?

According to the original comments "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."

All you need is a nice quick python wrapper for that and you've got a business :)

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#16

Post by kuschku »

imron wrote: post #11
pen2l wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be soooooo happy if I got to see the code that began it. Does it happen to available anywhere?

According to the original comments "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."

And that’s still true today. You can combine git with a file syncing system via FTP, SCP or WebDAV, and you get... SeaFile.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#17

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ant6n wrote: post #14
JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Replace everybody's hard-drive with a dropbox, shared across every device they own. Why shouldn't they IPO, it's basically the last funding round? Even if they were done growing and ready to start paying dividends now, what would be bad about that?

I'm having trouble understanding what the benefits are of going public for Dropbox. Increased financial reporting and the fiduciary duty to shareholders.

I suspect, as the article implies "there is increasing pressure to go pubic as investors look to cash out.

What features or new products could Dropbox develop with a few hundred million at they couldn't without?

I think the investors just want to cash out. If there was huge throw potential wouldn't they continue to raise VC money?

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#18

Post by nerdwaller »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

I would guess the Enterprise side, granted I'm not sure what/how much they have there. Picture this box[1] that's inside the company firewall... But seriously, they could have on prem, active directory integration, more permissions, user edit tracking/audit logs, etc.

My work changed entire email/storage/etc providers almost entirely for the file management system...

[1] https://cdn2.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/05...

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#19

Post by nihonde »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Dropbox Paper is the best implementation of collaborative text editor that I've ever used. I keep going back to it because it's easy to use. I never use Google Docs because Google's account management systems are such a hassle and I hate Material Design.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#20

Post by hkmurakami »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #17
ant6n wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace everybody's hard-drive with a dropbox, shared across every device they own. Why shouldn't they IPO, it's basically the last funding round? Even if they were done growing and ready to start paying dividends now, what would be bad about that?

I'm having trouble understanding what the benefits are of going public for Dropbox. Increased financial reporting and the fiduciary duty to shareholders. I suspect, as the article implies "there is increasing pressure to go pubic as investors look to cash out. What features or new products could Dropbox develop with a few hundred million at they couldn't without? I think the investors just want to cash out. If there…

Yes VC fund vintages are likely maturing.
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