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Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

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Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#61

Post by ghshephard »

onedev wrote: post #52
ghshephard wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you start to share files with a lot of other people, you very, very quickly use up the initial quota that you get with your free account. That's the Dropbox strategy - if you use it as an individual, you probably won't use that much. But, once you start using it in a social way - you quickly need to pay for a pro account.

They give out so much free space, right now I have 55GB of free space for life. Then again, I'm not the typical user; I've visited Dropbox HQ a couple times, gone to their recruiting events, and know some Dropbox engineers.

Yes - you would be atypical. I'm guessing that 99% of Dropbox Users have < 5GB of free space based on my rather geeky attempts at adding free space to my account and eventually ending up with 1.51 GB free space in addition to the initial 2 GB.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#62

Post by toomuchtodo »

argumentum wrote: post #55
awj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when you have no profit to speak of there's nothing to anchor the discussion. The hopeful talk about "growth" with the hazy implication that the company has a "profit" switch they will eventually flip into the "on" position. The cynical see a storm of speculation with no concrete anchor and walk out on what they see as a waste of time. Which, I guess, is a long way of saying "I agree with you". I think my theor…

By that standard, how do you justify Amazon's $170B market cap, given it's notoriously low profit margins?

Amazon has built a logistics machine that could entirely replace brick and mortar retail, books as we know it (ebooks), and so on.

Dropbox stores files. On Amazon, by the way.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#63

Post by argumentum »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #62
argumentum wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that standard, how do you justify Amazon's $170B market cap, given it's notoriously low profit margins?

Amazon has built a logistics machine that could entirely replace brick and mortar retail, books as we know it (ebooks), and so on. Dropbox stores files. On Amazon, by the way.

What you said is correct now, but when Amazon was Dropbox's age, it was "merely" an online bookstore. Over time, it has transformed into the company it is today, which has a justifiable, in my view, market cap of 20X Dropbox's "valuation". But you didn't justify this number in terms of profitability, but rather by the value it adds to the economy.

We don't know what Dropbox is going to be, yet, but it's already far more than a service that "stores files". It's the default way students and startups share files and work together. That's a pretty good market to build on.

How much would a company be worth if it was the default way most people worked together? What chance does Dropbox have of being that company? Those are the factors that justify $8B.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#64

Post by toomuchtodo »

argumentum wrote: post #63
toomuchtodo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has built a logistics machine that could entirely replace brick and mortar retail, books as we know it (ebooks), and so on. Dropbox stores files. On Amazon, by the way.

What you said is correct now , but when Amazon was Dropbox's age, it was "merely" an online bookstore. Over time, it has transformed into the company it is today, which has a justifiable, in my view, market cap of 20X Dropbox's "valuation". But you didn't justify this number in terms of profitability, but rather by the value it adds to the economy . We don't know what Dropbox is going to be , yet, but it's already fa…

My argument is that there is no barrier to entry. Want to compete against Amazon? The amount of cash you would need is enormous. That's Google/Microsoft/Apple scale (and, of course, Amazon).

Dropbox? Very little barrier to entry. Just like them, you could use S3.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#65

Post by aiowdhiwoa »

ghshephard wrote: post #61
onedev wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They give out so much free space, right now I have 55GB of free space for life. Then again, I'm not the typical user; I've visited Dropbox HQ a couple times, gone to their recruiting events, and know some Dropbox engineers.

Yes - you would be atypical. I'm guessing that 99% of Dropbox Users have < 5GB of free space based on my rather geeky attempts at adding free space to my account and eventually ending up with 1.51 GB free space in addition to the initial 2 GB.

>install dropbox on VM

>snapshot

>10 minutes of referral link + revert

>???

>45GB of free space for life

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#66

Post by argumentum »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #64
argumentum wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said is correct now , but when Amazon was Dropbox's age, it was "merely" an online bookstore. Over time, it has transformed into the company it is today, which has a justifiable, in my view, market cap of 20X Dropbox's "valuation". But you didn't justify this number in terms of profitability, but rather by the value it adds to the economy . We don't know what Dropbox is going to be , yet, but it's already fa…

My argument is that there is no barrier to entry. Want to compete against Amazon? The amount of cash you would need is enormous. That's Google/Microsoft/Apple scale (and, of course, Amazon). Dropbox? Very little barrier to entry. Just like them, you could use S3.

It's not a good argument .. traditional barriers to entry are never as insurmountable as they may seem at first. I doubt Jeff Bezos was concerned with the "amount of cash" needed to compete with Border's or Barnes & Noble.

The real barrier to entry is not competition from other companies, it is building a great product/service/company yourself. If it were so easy to "use S3" to start a Dropbox, why is there only one Dropbox? What's stopping anyone from "using EC2" to build another Facebook?

How exactly do you explain how Google/Apple/MS/etc became Google/Apple/MS/etc?

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#67

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelGG wrote: post #60
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need for anything like AWS or any payments. You offer some of your bandwidth and storage to the P2P network and get bandwidth and storage in return. Any machine on the network can participate. It has nothing to do with cloud providers. It's quite analogous to bittorrent.

Right, so in other words, it doesn't help most users in any way, shape, or form. It's no replacement for AWS or Dropbox or anything of the sort. I'm not going to run it on my tablets. My kids aren't going to run it on their laptops. Edit: Even the overview says "The providers automatically buy and sell capacity and coverage among themselves, transparently to the users." It's clear from the overview that it's meant as…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#68

Post by awj »

argumentum wrote: post #55
awj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when you have no profit to speak of there's nothing to anchor the discussion. The hopeful talk about "growth" with the hazy implication that the company has a "profit" switch they will eventually flip into the "on" position. The cynical see a storm of speculation with no concrete anchor and walk out on what they see as a waste of time. Which, I guess, is a long way of saying "I agree with you". I think my theor…

By that standard, how do you justify Amazon's $170B market cap, given it's notoriously low profit margins?

I don't think your comparison makes sense. When Amazon was at the stage Dropbox is at now investors were taking a risk I thought was insane. That risk paid off, but there are countless examples that didn't. Amazon now practically owns their space and has inexplicable license from the market to reinvest in infrastructure or outright avoid profit. Few other companies are in this position, so comparing valuations of Amazon and Dropbox is assuming many things I wouldn't agree to.

My point was about why people get cynical about a company that is actively making money but are more lenient on ones that aren't. When profit is an uninteresting point in the discussion, it tends to not be discussed.

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#69

Post by awj »

aiowdhiwoa wrote: post #65
ghshephard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - you would be atypical. I'm guessing that 99% of Dropbox Users have < 5GB of free space based on my rather geeky attempts at adding free space to my account and eventually ending up with 1.51 GB free space in addition to the initial 2 GB.

>install dropbox on VM >snapshot >10 minutes of referral link + revert >??? >45GB of free space for life

And you believe this is something a typical user is capable of, let alone that they would do?

Re: Dropbox Could Be A Bargain At An $8 Billion Valuation

#70

Post by toomuchtodo »

argumentum wrote: post #66
toomuchtodo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is that there is no barrier to entry. Want to compete against Amazon? The amount of cash you would need is enormous. That's Google/Microsoft/Apple scale (and, of course, Amazon). Dropbox? Very little barrier to entry. Just like them, you could use S3.

It's not a good argument .. traditional barriers to entry are never as insurmountable as they may seem at first. I doubt Jeff Bezos was concerned with the "amount of cash" needed to compete with Border's or Barnes & Noble. The real barrier to entry is not competition from other companies, it is building a great product/service/company yourself. If it were so easy to "use S3" to start a Dropbox, why is there only one…

> How exactly do you explain how Google/Apple/MS/etc became Google/Apple/MS/etc?

The moat is much higher than it was 5-10 years ago. Do you have billions of dollars that you're sitting on that you could use to compete against Google/Apple/MS?

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