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Dropbox S-1

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Re: Dropbox S-1

#241

Post by ironjunkie »

anonytrary wrote: post #236
tetrazine wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what??? I mean, you're entitled to do whatever you'd like. But do you see the potential valuations being tossed around? "Drew" is worth tens to hundreds of millions. I just have no idea why someone would find it not only worth it to take money out of their own pocket to further a corporation that has no need for the empathy we would normally afford to people (or small businesses, which "round down" to individu…

Predictably irrational people exist! However, how is this different than a $30 donation? I think the real question you want to ask is: Why do people donate money to people who already have lots of money?

As you state, this comment equals to: "I like Drew, so let me make a donation of 30$ to Dropbox"

That's why I like economics so much. A lot of irrational behavior come simply from the fact that humans are usually terrible to understand the underlying economic transactions taking place.

One of my favorite irrational behaviour is the one in which people value object they got more than the equivalent price in which they could buy//sell that object.

For example: You have an old bottle of wine in your cellar, and it is now valued at 500$. A lot of people would simply put, never buy a 500$ bottle.

But if that bottle was your possession, most of the people would keep it and eventually probably drink it, being completely irrational in regards with the 500$ valuation.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#242

Post by skaushik92 » 

    Given the volume of our users, we do not track the retention rates of our individual users.
    As a result, we may be unable to address any retention issues with specific users in a timely manner,
    which could harm our business.
Isn't this measurement critical to understanding if the business decisions are in line with customer expectations and use-cases? I find it odd that such a key metric is not tracked, and having more users should mean that it's an even more reliable metric to gauge features and releases.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#243

Post by ceejayoz »

teej wrote: post #141
swrobel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give us the dirt on this one!

There's nothing shocking and I think that bodes very very well for Dropbox. It looks like a solid foundation with great growth. The standouts to me were - * They cut costs on an absolute and relative basis for the last two years. This is fantastic and I hope the trend continues. * I don't understand how the $112 ARPU number foots with their pricing. They are telling a story that "teams" is driving growth but on the s…

> Presumably people have 2+ dropbox accounts (personal + work).

I'd imagine there's quite a few with dozens, as they offer more space (up to a bit over 30 referrals) if you refer new users. I remember "referring" myself with a new email address whenever I'd need an extra 250 MB.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#244

Post by bad_user »

jest3r1 wrote: post #238

The risk factors fail to mention their inability to offer any kind of end-to-end encryption. Or that E2E encryption is the differentiator that most of their competitors offer. Dropbox (employees and trusted third parties) will always have access to your files. Before you downvote. This is not necessarily a bad thing. They can deliver more features and better performance as a result. Reliability is key, and it's certa…

> Email is moving that direction (Proton Mail, Tutanota)

No it doesn't.

I've never heard of Tutanota, but Proton Mail is hardly evidence of anything. In fact the attack vector for email is very different when compared with other channels, as for email I'm not afraid of my email provider as I'm afraid of hacking attempts. Yes, I value security over privacy for email. Therefore I would trust Gmail more than I would trust Proton Mail.

Proton Email is also non-standard and is obviously not E2E encrypted when it comes to communicating with non-Proton recipients. If I actually wanted encrypted email, I would use GPG. It sucks from a usability point of view, but it's standard and for email that matters.

> I use Dropbox and it's still the leader in terms of features, but I see the competition catching up, with better privacy (end-to-end encryption) built in.

Curious, which competition?

I tried everything that I could find, because Dropbox has a high price and their online search didn't work well even after I upgraded to Pro.

Btw, it might actually be better to do an encrypted drive with https://cryptomator.org on top of Dropbox or Google Drive. It's definitely more reliable ;-)

Or in other words, if the service provider does not get access to your files due to encryption, then there isn't much value they can add. You can't have a secure web interface for encrypted files, you can't have online search. So might as well do application-level encryption and all you need is cheap and reliable storage.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#245

Post by dzonga »

Every-time, I read a 10-K or S-1 I imagine if humans evaluated their lives as companies do. Humanity will be better off. Every potential and risk to a good degree honestly evaluated.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#246

Post by jmalicki »

ironjunkie wrote: post #241
anonytrary wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictably irrational people exist! However, how is this different than a $30 donation? I think the real question you want to ask is: Why do people donate money to people who already have lots of money?

As you state, this comment equals to: "I like Drew, so let me make a donation of 30$ to Dropbox" That's why I like economics so much. A lot of irrational behavior come simply from the fact that humans are usually terrible to understand the underlying economic transactions taking place. One of my favorite irrational behaviour is the one in which people value object they got more than the equivalent price in which they…

You also have to consider the level of effort it takes to sell the bottle to someone who isn't an experienced wine dealer, and the spread that likely exists between the buyer and seller.

So even though it may be $500 to buy new, it's probably more like a $100 bottle if they sell it, so it's like getting an 80% off deal? Why not drink it?

Re: Dropbox S-1

#247

Post by throwaway93192 »

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago.

For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them.

Good for you if you're OK with that extreme imbalance. But, I know too many people that discovered only upon an exit, that the financial reward was never destined for them.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#248

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

> When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them.

Well, it'll mostly pay off for major capital holders (which founders are likely but not certain to be, depending on the course of business before then, and top executives at the time may or may not.) Top executives as such (outside of their role, if any, as capital holders) may get more benefit than you, but even if so it will be much less than the capital holders.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#249

Post by anonytrary »

ironjunkie wrote: post #241
anonytrary wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictably irrational people exist! However, how is this different than a $30 donation? I think the real question you want to ask is: Why do people donate money to people who already have lots of money?

As you state, this comment equals to: "I like Drew, so let me make a donation of 30$ to Dropbox" That's why I like economics so much. A lot of irrational behavior come simply from the fact that humans are usually terrible to understand the underlying economic transactions taking place. One of my favorite irrational behaviour is the one in which people value object they got more than the equivalent price in which they…

> One of my favorite irrational behaviour is the one in which people value object they got more than the equivalent price in which they could buy//sell that object.

Art is also a good example. Art is globally unique, so what does it even mean for art to be worth $X? Seems like the only "value" of art is the price the next guy is willing to pay. The price is undefined until it's not.

On the other hand, if I have a fake Van Gogh, I would not be emotional upon liquidating it because it is fungible; some computer and printer somewhere can easily reproduce the piece if I ever need it again. In addition, the price is well-defined because fakes have a well-defined manufacturing cost associated with them. An authentic Van Gogh has an infinite manufacturing cost as the guy is dead.

Re: Dropbox S-1

#250

Post by sillysaurus3 »

throwaway93192 wrote: post #247

I'll just point out that the SVP of engineering, a former Microsoft exec, received $34 million in compensation, since joining less than 6 months ago. For all employees that are considering joining a startup as rank-and-file engineers and putting in years of effort, remember that your compensation will be paltry compared to founders and top execs. When your work finally pays off, it will mostly pay off for them. Good…

It never was and never will be. We like to pretend that employees are so fairly compensated, and yet I had to fight tooth and nail to get a mere 2% equity. The thought of an equity stake closer to 10% was almost unheard of. But you bet I'd have had an impact large enough to justify those returns, in the sense of http://paulgraham.com/equity.html

Except... It's not quite that simple. Most people don't care. The vast majority of programmers simply do not care enough to band together and force employers to give you a higher stake.

I'm not even insinuating that a union would be a good idea. I'm saying, in a free market society, you can't be surprised to find out you just aren't worth making rich.

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