This is really inspiring, for the most part; dont let HN comments stump your aspirations.
April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
171–180 of 181 posts
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Careful! A lot of would be Drew Houston's end up discouraged by naysayers. As a founder, it took me a while to know who to listen to. One of the toughest things about doing a startup is people telling you you're wrong all the time. One of the things YC (and pg in particular) gets right is that they're very encouraging of potential for success.
> it took me a while to know who to listen to Perhaps this was your problem. Who is not important, what they are saying is. You're being told you're wrong? Why? Do they have a point or does their argument break down to simply 'because' or 'because no one has done it that way before'? If they have a point, at the very least, they probably just pointed out a problem you need to over come in the future and you can thank…
> Do they have a point or does their argument break down to simply 'because' or 'because no one has done it that way before'?
You'll find that the vast majority of arguments that people give you have a point. Look no further than the arguments provided against Dropbox here. The real difficulty is knowing which points are more important than others.
For example, whether developing a desktop program has the potential to be the next big startup in part depends on whether or not you believe the desktop market will still be around in the next some odd years. There is no 'right' answer to that question unless you happen to be able to see into the future.
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quite an interesting story. I guess I am a few years behind you, as in I just graduated a year back and get offers from startups which i accept/turn down. I often wonder how these startups would end up and where I would be relative to them. But I guess what makes the most sense here is the part that says "you made the decision that was right for you.". That kind of seems like the right line of thought.
FWIW, during that time period (07/08), I talked with about 10 startups about joining as a founder or early employee. DropBox is the only one still in business today. So I think that the Paul Buchheit post that Joe linked is pretty accurate: "How to be right 90% of the time: predict it'll fail." It's just that you only need one success. I've had other reasons for staying at Google as long as I have, though, and I woul…
Indeed. Success is a little more complex to measure than being employed at DropBox or Google. And also varies from person to person.
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#174I loved this comment: > 1. For a Linux user, 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. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software. Trivially use three different systems to simulate some type of not quite automatic syncing. Why do Linux users ofte…
If you're already familiar with those tools, the incremental effort to put them together is trivial.
It's no different from saying that driving to the store is trivial: People who don't already know how to drive would disagree, but it doesn't make the statement invalid.
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#175I loved this comment: > 1. For a Linux user, 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. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software. Trivially use three different systems to simulate some type of not quite automatic syncing. Why do Linux users ofte…
If you're already familiar with those tools, the incremental effort to put them together is trivial. It's no different from saying that driving to the store is trivial: People who don't already know how to drive would disagree, but it doesn't make the statement invalid.
This is probably the disconnect. My experience with Linux is generally limited to servers (headless). I only have one Linux box at home and that's for XBMC. So for someone like me that has a workable knowledge of Linux but not every package that's around, these types of solutions are non-obvious and non-trivial. A matter of perspective I guess.
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#176The secret to success: Trust in yourself, nobody else is going to trust in you.
Another secret to success: have good parenting, DNA, education, friends, and an interest in creating things of value (as opposed to the other million things you can do with your time)
> creating things of value
This is extremely subjective, taking the example of dropbox, most of the comments against it at 2007 were dismissive because "it didn't had enough value".
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#177Read the comments there. Now come back. This is why you don't ask engineers for business advice. I can't tell you how many times I've come up with an idea I think is great, go to work, and talk to my buddies in firmware. The first thing almost all the time out of their mouth is basically "why don't use solution x, in addition to y, which will basically give you the same thing" where x and y are great technologies, bu…
>> 1. For a Linux user, 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. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software. This type of response is so typical of an engineer and so out-of-touch. Not to pick on it, but it's just absurd, and shows zero ability…
The best part is that I'm an engineer, and a Linux user, and I still don't do all that because it's a pain in the ass.
(But then, I don't use Dropbox either.)
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#178Though they have been very successful, it's a pity that in my experience they have turned into something of a big co in the way they deal with customers and quite sneakily hide important technical limitations from hackers who might want to use them. After a year or two of happy premium-paying use, I noticed dropbox was using 100% of my CPU. Some googling suggested this was due to having too many files. Ok, fair enoug…
> indexing >300k files is tough (very easy to get to that count if you're keeping open source codebases on DB … Also throughout this dropbox repeatedly overwrites work files while I'm working on them (thankfully with backups.) To their credit, it sounds like you should have been using source control all along.
> To their credit, it sounds like you should have been using source control all along.
I reply to this only so people don't think I am negligent enough to not use source control!
Yes I use source control, but there are these periods where things aren't committed, during which you can lose work if some process overwrites files. The same goes for disk failure, unwise use of the rm command, etc.
To their credit that a file you are currently editing is overwritten with an old version by their software, but hey at least that software made a copy? Are you joking?
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Channel-like functions?! Please no. The only thing stopping anyone from streaming live sports is licensing.
I'm talking in the "curated series of shows" sense, as ctdonath aptly put it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572450
Actually the thing that's infuriating about Netflix and many of its competitors is the weak or no support for deep linking to content. We don't need channels to curate content if bloggers, etc. can do it themselves.
Re: April 5, 2007: "Show HN, Dropbox"
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a far more insidious fact is that Dropbox fills in a gap left wide open by incompetent OS developers. Its the 21st Century - the OS should be providing such features inherently, without requiring a third party involvement. Maybe HN'ers, at that time, were somehow conscious of this fact, and thus declined to 'see the revolution' that was headed their way. Either way, since there was no other option, Dropbox wa…
Dropbox support several OSes though, which is still better than any one OS providing a similar capability natively. In general, the OS should just do what it NEEDS to do, and let applications fill out the rest.
The fact that there are multiple OS's out there means there is a battle going on. Dropbox serves a need that should be being defined by co-existing OS participants. But we see this everywhere in the Application space, so your point is valid, there is just an OS border, and an App border. I think what I'm trying to say is that border moves around a bit, and I'm cranky about that.