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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#341

Post by antonyt »

umeshunni wrote: post #128
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack shot their own selves in the foot iirc. They were miles ahead of any competitor, employees loved it, and then they just started gouging all their whale customers in contract negotiations, to the point that they started looking elsewhere... If this isn't the full picture, let me know. I was at multiple companies trying to move away from Slack as the cost was not justifiable

What are they moving to, though? I can't imagine that Teams is any better.

Teams and Google Chat. They're both incredibly bad compared to Slack. But if your org is on 365 or Workspace, you're already paying for them. Big orgs don't love double-paying, quality be damned.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#342

Post by Destiner »

kraig911 wrote: post #183

Dropbox my one critique is can you please make it affordable again. I just can't justify the cost as there are cheaper services out there. I don't care about PDF signing etc. I fear OneDrive/Google Drive are eating you lunch because it's a hard sell to be competitive against them price wise.

you're not a target customer anymore.

they need $$$ from enterprise, everything else is a distraction.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#343

Post by jnwatson »

echoangle wrote: post #295
bhouston wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M That is insanely low for the CEO of a public company of Dropbox's size. But I suspect he owned a lot of shares in the company so when it went public, so he doesn't need salary, it is just a rounding error in terms of his wealth. EDIT: Yeah, he is worth $2B according to Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/profile/drew-houston/

I always wonder what gives these people the drive to continue. Maybe I’m lazy and lacking vision but if I were worth 2B, I don’t think I would go to the office every day just to get accused of mismanagement when I have to lay people off. I would take my yacht to the Caribbean and slack off.

Even if he still wants to work, restructuring a second tier post-growth tech company wouldn't be my first choice.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#344

Post by rsynnott »

recroad wrote: post #44

TIL that nobody knows what they're doing. Jokes aside, how do you end up having more than 500 excess people than what you need? What is management exactly doing during the time they went from 1 excess person to 500? Did they just hope the "macroeconomic headwinds" would become tailwinds? Didn't they at some point see that they have more people than valuable work, and maybe we should deal with that problem instead of…

> Jokes aside, how do you end up having more than 500 excess people than what you need?

Often with this sort of thing, the company is essentially sacrificing future revenue to cut current costs; projects get delayed or cut, but, hey, the balance sheet looks better for a bit!

The other reason it happens (and here the cuts would mostly be operational and sales) is if the company just isn't getting as many customers as it had expected.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#345

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

grepfru_it wrote: post #232
andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

That’s actually a pretty low salary but I just looked up their revenue numbers and it’s not looking that hot. They are also hemorrhaging cash this year. His salary and the performance of the company were probably a good foreshadowing of the layoffs

> His salary and the performance of the company were probably a good foreshadowing of the layoffs

As is standard. My recommendation to anyone that works in a corporate environment is that if you want to know whether the company will be at risk of layoffs in the future, become good friends with someone in sales. When the sales leads and activity start to drop (or growth rate starts to slow), you can usually be assured that layoffs will eventually follow. In my experience the sales folks were always the first to clean up their resumes and start the job hunt because they knew what was coming.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#347

Post by [deleted] »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #299

> "As CEO, I take full responsibility for this decision and the circumstances that led to it, and I’m truly sorry to those impacted by this change." As with other CEOs who say such things in similar situations - does this "responsibility" amount to anything? Like loss of salary or options or seniority. Or is this just empty words? I appreciate that this action is probably necessary to safeguard the business but, as s…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#348

Post by YetAnotherNick »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #176
yieldcrv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would you like the next CEO to handle it, for reference?

Stop saying "take responsibility" if they aren't actually. If you knock a girl up and you "take responsibility" it means you getting married. If you are in a car wreck and you "take responsibility" it means you are paying for repairs. If you commit a crime and "take responsibility" you are going to jail. So if a CEO is "taking responsibility" it should be something like that second case, dollars from their own pocket…

GP asked what should CEO say instead. Not what should they not say.

Re: Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction

#350

Post by ericmcer »

andygcook wrote: post #208

For context, Drew Houston's total compensation for the year in 2023 was $1.5M: > According to our data, Dropbox, Inc. ... paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$1.5m over the year to December 2023. That's a notable increase of 34% on last year via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-why-dropbox-inc-nasdaq-... Even if Drew took minimum wage, that would save ~15 jobs assuming $100K all-in comp (which seems lo…

Seriously, that severance is awesome. Of all the tech workers struggling, the ones from companies big enough to throw 4+ mo severance packages are not the ones I am worried about. Any smaller company your severance is a pat on the back.
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