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Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#321

Post by kerkeslager »

rco8786 wrote: post #54
soared wrote: post #18

> In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we'll need even more. Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatg…

> Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatgpt released, and then laying off 16% of your company to.. use ai to store files better? I really don’t see how new ai capabilities lead to big layoffs and new opportunities for Dropbox snark incoming - Imagine thinking you understand the product strategy for a 14 year old, publicly traded company with thousands of employees without working t…

> Imagine thinking you understand the product strategy for a 14 year old, publicly traded company with thousands of employees without working there or having any sort of insider knowledge.

Imagine I'm a shareholder and the product strategy is either bad or being communicated to me unclearly.

> It's also not much of a reach to imagine use cases here.

It's also not much of a reach to imagine the same breathless magical thinking about AI which is happening everywhere taking over the management at Dropbox.

So far I've seen a lot of potential and exactly 0 effective applications of AI at scale. So I know which my money is on.

I'm definitely betting on AI, but the way I'm betting on AI is betting on AI companies building better AIs. I'm not betting on companies whose only involvement in AI is that they suddenly have to have it because it's the latest buzzword.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#322

Post by vcryan »

It surprises me that Dropbox has more than 500 employees at all... that's a lot of people for a product that does one thing well that hasn't substantially changed in years...

To be clear: I'm a fan. Just sincerely don't know the benefit of what could be a very targeted and strategic company in having so much staff.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#323

Post by [deleted] »

soared wrote: post #18

> In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we'll need even more. Imagine building a company that lets users store files online, seeing chatg…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#326

Post by [deleted] »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #275
birdyrooster wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously it’s embarrassing how leadership in many companies has ZERO vision for AI right now. Too focused on buying houses, drinking wine and riding horses. I think these people need to retire already.

Snark aside, this is something that's always kind of baffled me. If I built a company and eventually found myself in extremely high value (ie, 9 figures), I'd be looking to retire ASAP. That would be it. I won capitalism. Time to spend the rest of my life on Maui sipping Mai-Tais on the beach. Why anybody would want to continue to work when they already have enough wealth to live an extremely lavish lifestyle without…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#327

Post by iamjake648 »

vcryan wrote: post #322

It surprises me that Dropbox has more than 500 employees at all... that's a lot of people for a product that does one thing well that hasn't substantially changed in years... To be clear: I'm a fan. Just sincerely don't know the benefit of what could be a very targeted and strategic company in having so much staff.

I'm curious the size of the companies you've worked in, and what sort of support, legal, finance, etc requirements they've had. Companies aren't just made up of engineers.

I see this same comment on every single one of these layoff threads and they always seem to be a bit disconnected.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#328

Post by dfadsadsf »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #275
birdyrooster wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously it’s embarrassing how leadership in many companies has ZERO vision for AI right now. Too focused on buying houses, drinking wine and riding horses. I think these people need to retire already.

Snark aside, this is something that's always kind of baffled me. If I built a company and eventually found myself in extremely high value (ie, 9 figures), I'd be looking to retire ASAP. That would be it. I won capitalism. Time to spend the rest of my life on Maui sipping Mai-Tais on the beach. Why anybody would want to continue to work when they already have enough wealth to live an extremely lavish lifestyle without…

> If I built a company and eventually found myself in extremely high value (ie, 9 figures), I'd be looking to retire ASAP. That would be it. I won capitalism. Time to spend the rest of my life on Maui sipping Mai-Tais on the beach.

There is strong correlation between people who find themselves in 9 figures (outside of inheritance) and people who have completely opposite worldview from yours. If you make money to retire to Maui, you will take the first off ramp which allows you to do it which is way before you get into 9 figures.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#329

Post by kiratp »

hbn wrote: post #169
avnfish wrote: post #25

I recently migrated from Dropbox to Google One. I find Dropbox's personal pricing really baffling: you get 2 GB for free or have to move all the way up to 2 TB and pay £100 a year. 100GB for £16 via Google is a much more sensible offer.

Google One's tiers are better, but they're still kinda nonsense. The first 2 paid tiers are 100GB and 200GB which are fine. But then you have to jump up 3.5x the cost to 2TB. Why can't they just offer finely-tuned increments of 100GB? Or even 50GB or 25GB. I'm mindful with what I put on cloud storage (mainly photo/video backups with Google Photos). I'm fine bumping up as I use more, but I don't feel like you suddenly…

It’s pretty simple. Selling storage is a crap margin business. The provider makes no money on selling you those lower tiers. They only make money when you upgrade and buy more storage than what you use.

They don’t want to sell you a cheap commodity. They want to sell you convenience at higher margin.

Re: Dropbox to reduce global workforce by about 16%, or 500 staff

#330

Post by kiratp »

gimme_treefiddy wrote: post #313
paxys wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having an enterprise product automatically increases headcount by 5x. Sales reps, account managers, CSMs, solutions engineers, forward deployed engineers, priority support, compliance...

> Having an enterprise product automatically increases headcount by 5x Can you expand on this. Why is this the case. Does it even mean increase in engg headcount, if so why. Can you link to somewhere if possible. Always had this question, and this pattern is very similar in other places. So maybe it works?

Because you enterprise customers expect it. They pay large multiples above SMB to get dedicated (human) service
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