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Dropbox Versus The World

fastcompany.com

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Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#11

Post by kzhahou »

Cookingboy wrote: post #2

Love this following paragraph: "Houston is also working hard to ensure that Dropbox feels like a collection of peers, at all levels of the company. It’s a philosophy that appeals to many Dropbox employees. On a chilly night in San Francisco’s Financial District, Ilya Fushman, head of business and mobile products, and Agarwal join Houston and me for dinner at the Battery, an exclusive restaurant and private club. Desp…

> Houston is also working hard to ensure that Dropbox feels like a collection of peers, at all levels of the company

But that surely doesn't extend to equity, where the founder holds an order of magnitude or two more than his VP of Engineering, who holds an order of magnitude more than his rank-and-file employee "peers" who built and continue to build the company towards success.

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#12

Post by inevrela »

Proud user of Dropbox, lot of people around me using it as well, even received 50gb of storage with my S3. I guess I know what it does, but thinking about Business version - anyone here with any cons? Especially in terms of sharing stuff in/out of the company?

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#13

Post by capkutay »

arikrak wrote: post #7

I only started the article, but it's too over-the-top to continue. I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that? > Dropbox has the distinction of being the only cloud service—and perhaps the only startup—ever to compete simultaneously against Apple ($748 billion market cap), Google ($369 billion), Microsoft ($357 billion), Amazon ($173 billion), and Tencent ($160 billion). > Unlike his amply finan…

"I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that?"

I'm sure being a cheerleader for big companies with massive PR budgets is a nice revenue stream for these online media outlets.

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#14

Post by LiweiZ »

pronoiac wrote: post #3

> Dropbox has the distinction of being the only cloud service--and perhaps the only startup--ever to compete simultaneously against Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tencent. If you're wondering who Tencent is, you're not alone: http://www.thestreet.com/story/13095109/1/how-tencent-up-140... They sold games on feature phones, then smartphones, then made WeChat, which is IM, I think, and massive in China. They als…

Tencent started with OICQ (later QQ), a somewhat ICQ clone, back in 1999. One of the most important factors, if not the most important one, contributing to the wild growth of WeChat in China is almost everyone online has at least one QQ number connecting with acquaintances. I think QQ was not as dominant as now. MSN messenger was quite popular among young middle class. In fact, the two are mainly used by different classes. After the shutdown of MSN messenger and the rise of domestic organizations (my personal perspective though), QQ seems to be the only dominant force in the market.

edit: typo and added: In fact, the two are mainly used by different classes.

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#15

Post by boomzilla »

capkutay wrote: post #13
arikrak wrote: post #7

I only started the article, but it's too over-the-top to continue. I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that? > Dropbox has the distinction of being the only cloud service—and perhaps the only startup—ever to compete simultaneously against Apple ($748 billion market cap), Google ($369 billion), Microsoft ($357 billion), Amazon ($173 billion), and Tencent ($160 billion). > Unlike his amply finan…

"I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that?" I'm sure being a cheerleader for big companies with massive PR budgets is a nice revenue stream for these online media outlets.

Remember when Google was trying to fly under the radar because they were afraid that Microsoft would find out how much money they were making selling ads on search result pages. Anyone knows if any company is doing that today? It seems we only know about start-up companies through PR pieces (oh pardon me, I mean objective journalism of the highest quality).

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#16

Post by kijin »

> From the start, Dropbox was almost magically simple: Install Dropbox’s folder on your desktop, and by simply dragging files into it you could suddenly access them from anywhere.

That was simple in 2007, but this kind of synching model (also used by Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive) doesn't feel simple anymore to me. Most applications still save files in other locations by default. Having to save them in your Dropbox, or having to move them to your Dropbox afterward, turns out to be a massive friction.

If the goal is that "Your whole computing environment ought to follow you around", you need to remove that friction. I know at least one person who lost access to some important files when she needed them because she forgot to drop them off in the right box.

One possibility would be to do what Microsoft does with Office 2014 and OneDrive, and try to force you to save all your files inside the synched folder. But that quickly gets annoying, especially since most people already have mountains of files stored and organized elsewhere.

That, and the lack of client-side encryption, is why I'm a loyal customer of a Dropbox competitor that allows me to sync any folder on any device with any other folder on any other device. I set it up to sync my entire $HOME partition, so I don't need to care where my apps store their files. That, Mr. Houston, is how you get me to hand over my "whole computing environment" to you.

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#17

Post by [deleted] »

boomzilla wrote: post #15
capkutay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that?" I'm sure being a cheerleader for big companies with massive PR budgets is a nice revenue stream for these online media outlets.

Remember when Google was trying to fly under the radar because they were afraid that Microsoft would find out how much money they were making selling ads on search result pages. Anyone knows if any company is doing that today? It seems we only know about start-up companies through PR pieces (oh pardon me, I mean objective journalism of the highest quality).

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#18

Post by bane »

arikrak wrote: post #7

I only started the article, but it's too over-the-top to continue. I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that? > Dropbox has the distinction of being the only cloud service—and perhaps the only startup—ever to compete simultaneously against Apple ($748 billion market cap), Google ($369 billion), Microsoft ($357 billion), Amazon ($173 billion), and Tencent ($160 billion). > Unlike his amply finan…

This is getting a bit meta https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9292110

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#19

Post by sandipc »

kijin wrote: post #16

> From the start, Dropbox was almost magically simple: Install Dropbox’s folder on your desktop, and by simply dragging files into it you could suddenly access them from anywhere. That was simple in 2007, but this kind of synching model (also used by Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive) doesn't feel simple anymore to me. Most applications still save files in other locations by default. Having to save them in your Dro…

symlink your home directory into your dropbox folder?

Re: Dropbox Versus The World

#20

Post by pronoiac »

sandipc wrote: post #19
kijin wrote: post #16

> From the start, Dropbox was almost magically simple: Install Dropbox’s folder on your desktop, and by simply dragging files into it you could suddenly access them from anywhere. That was simple in 2007, but this kind of synching model (also used by Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive) doesn't feel simple anymore to me. Most applications still save files in other locations by default. Having to save them in your Dro…

symlink your home directory into your dropbox folder?

I'd be wary of a Dropbox folder that contains a link to a parent directory of itself, with the possibility of an infinite loop.
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