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Employee #1: Dropbox

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Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#81

Post by elgenie »

pw wrote: post #80

Anyone noticing from these interviews that a lot of first employees are kinda just randos that aren't very impressive in their own right and don't stay at the company very long?

Aston's tenure at Dropbox (four and half years) is "very long" in Silicon Valley terms in general and in early stage startup terms in particular.

As for being "randos that aren't very impressive in their own right", you're zeroed in on a set of people who joined a startup before there was much traction, let alone profit, with almost the same risk as the founders but with less upside. That group is going to skew young and/or unsuccessful before they join and, since the interviews are conducted with #1 employees at successful companies, will skew towards having FU money for their post-exit careers.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#82

Post by bdr »

_RPM wrote: post #36
psyc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's fun to be envious of rich people, but I grew up in poverty, and so far I've earned myself 5 years to focus full time on my stuff. I know it's a little harder, maybe, but all I had to do was go to work first. Most people go to work anyway.

Maybe I did come off as envious, but I'm not angry, or sad, or feeling like I don't have opportunities to be a successful startup founder myself. It's just that you do often see a pattern among founders. It's so common that I've started noticing it. It's certainly not true that you have to come from a privileged family to be a successful entrepreneur. Look at examples like Larry Ellison.

It seems like your question was set up to confirm your conclusion. If you had instead asked how Drew was able to support himself, you'd probably get a more accurate answer.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#83

Post by voltagex_ »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #25
dasmoth wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a story last year about Facebook having "2G Tuesdays" to give employees an idea of what life on a slow network is like. I wonder whether it caught on?

Such a genius idea. I see far too many web applications not caring about latency. Forcing a developer to experience the same pain should help them. Unless that simply becomes the day everyone typically takes off, blames productivity on slow network connectivity, etc.

Dropbox is one of these - not necessarily latency but bandwidth. If LAN sync fails it quickly falls back on uploading/downloading files via Dropbox's servers, which can be expensive depending on what connection you're on. There's no way to debug why LAN sync isn't working and it doesn't seem to respect Windows 10's Metered Network settings.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#84

Post by pw »

elgenie wrote: post #81
pw wrote: post #80

Anyone noticing from these interviews that a lot of first employees are kinda just randos that aren't very impressive in their own right and don't stay at the company very long?

Aston's tenure at Dropbox (four and half years) is "very long" in Silicon Valley terms in general and in early stage startup terms in particular. As for being "randos that aren't very impressive in their own right", you're zeroed in on a set of people who joined a startup before there was much traction, let alone profit, with almost the same risk as the founders but with less upside. That group is going to skew young…

I realize first employees will tend to skew young and/or unsuccessful and, as a result of being first employees, these people have FU money, but my point is that their success seems to be kinda random. There's no sense of inevitability about their success like you see with really great founders. And it seems like they never go on to do anything amazing in their post-exit careers.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#85

Post by elgenie »

pw wrote: post #84
elgenie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aston's tenure at Dropbox (four and half years) is "very long" in Silicon Valley terms in general and in early stage startup terms in particular. As for being "randos that aren't very impressive in their own right", you're zeroed in on a set of people who joined a startup before there was much traction, let alone profit, with almost the same risk as the founders but with less upside. That group is going to skew young…

I realize first employees will tend to skew young and/or unsuccessful and, as a result of being first employees, these people have FU money, but my point is that their success seems to be kinda random. There's no sense of inevitability about their success like you see with really great founders. And it seems like they never go on to do anything amazing in their post-exit careers.

How amazing is the post-exit career of the average great founder? What if the success of the "really great founders" similarly has quite a bit of randomness involved? The halo effect and associated myth-making doesn't get applied nearly as much to employee #1.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#86

Post by pw »

elgenie wrote: post #85
pw wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize first employees will tend to skew young and/or unsuccessful and, as a result of being first employees, these people have FU money, but my point is that their success seems to be kinda random. There's no sense of inevitability about their success like you see with really great founders. And it seems like they never go on to do anything amazing in their post-exit careers.

How amazing is the post-exit career of the average great founder? What if the success of the "really great founders" similarly has quite a bit of randomness involved? The halo effect and associated myth-making doesn't get applied nearly as much to employee #1.

I feel like I've struck a nerve in some way and would love to better understand what's fueling your response. Why do you feel like you have to defend first employees?

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#87

Post by pw »

elgenie wrote: post #85
pw wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize first employees will tend to skew young and/or unsuccessful and, as a result of being first employees, these people have FU money, but my point is that their success seems to be kinda random. There's no sense of inevitability about their success like you see with really great founders. And it seems like they never go on to do anything amazing in their post-exit careers.

How amazing is the post-exit career of the average great founder? What if the success of the "really great founders" similarly has quite a bit of randomness involved? The halo effect and associated myth-making doesn't get applied nearly as much to employee #1.

I think you might have a point about the "post-exit career of the average great founder" in that it's usually not that impressive.

Larry and Sergey certainly would qualify as "great founders", given their level of success, and, while they continue to run Google competently, they really haven't done anything else (Google still really only has one line of business, after all).

Whereas on the other hand, we have someone like Bezos who, with AWS, has created not one, but two ten billion dollar plus businesses and whose ambition seems to be boundless. Or, of course, Elon.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#88

Post by gadders »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #58
pensive_returns wrote: post #49

An interesting titbit Aston leaves out about his early days is that he was actually cofounder of AutoAdmit.com[0], a law school admissions forum, semi-notorious for its defamation lawsuits and being an incubator for troll, Michael O. Church[1] (banned on Quora, Wikipedia, and Hacker News for being a thorn in Paul Graham and Dan G, sides) that formed after the great Princeton Review Discussion Board exodus and has per…

Michael O. Church a troll? Please. The guy had an odd view of himself but I always found he provided excellent well thought out analysis and arguments. I'm not saying he is always right, but he wasn't a troll.

I think they should let him back in. He was an entertaining read.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#89

Post by ones_and_zeros »

gadders wrote: post #88
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael O. Church a troll? Please. The guy had an odd view of himself but I always found he provided excellent well thought out analysis and arguments. I'm not saying he is always right, but he wasn't a troll.

I think they should let him back in. He was an entertaining read.

This was actually news to me that he got banned. Can't imagine what he did to deserve that.

Re: Employee #1: Dropbox

#90

Post by ones_and_zeros »

tptacek wrote: post #77
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael O. Church a troll? Please. The guy had an odd view of himself but I always found he provided excellent well thought out analysis and arguments. I'm not saying he is always right, but he wasn't a troll.

Are we sure "pensive_returns" isn't Michael O. Church? Serious question: commenters on HN that write in an idiosyncratic fashion about Church have turned out to be him before. Every time I read a comment about Church, I find myself asking, "is this how a normal person would write about someone best known for commenting on message boards?"

Could be, kinda weird he got banned from all of those places, though I'm not familiar with Quora or autoadmit.
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