How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
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Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#2The fact that they were strangers is super surprising, especially given how YC seems to discourage that kind of "founder dating", suggesting instead you found companies only with people you trust deeply.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#3The fact that they were strangers is super surprising, especially given how YC seems to discourage that kind of "founder dating", suggesting instead you found companies only with people you trust deeply.
OTOH, the fact that dhouston was able to convince a current MIT student and otherwise total stranger to drop out and follow him on this journey in just a few hours' conversation is telling of both his and the product's prowess.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#4The fact that they were strangers is super surprising, especially given how YC seems to discourage that kind of "founder dating", suggesting instead you found companies only with people you trust deeply.
OTOH, the fact that dhouston was able to convince a current MIT student and otherwise total stranger to drop out and follow him on this journey in just a few hours' conversation is telling of both his and the product's prowess.
That narrative doesn't quite align with the article stating that "for various reasons none of his friends were able to join the business." In retrospect all of Houston's friends made a huge mistake! Maybe Ferdowsi was tired of MIT and joined him on a lark? I am curious to hear the story from his perspective.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#5After watching the popular opionion about Dropbox for most of its early years, that it was a product (or worse just a feature) and not a sustainable independent company/business, I'm always glad to see them continuing to grow and thrive. Hats off to Drew and the Dropbox team.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#6When Google Drive and iCloud and One Drive all cropped up, copying the same service with the addition of deeper integration into different devices and software, I was worried Dropbox would be unable to compete. But they've hung in there, and I remain a happy customer.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#7When Google Drive and iCloud and One Drive all cropped up, copying the same service with the addition of deeper integration into different devices and software, I was worried Dropbox would be unable to compete. But they've hung in there, and I remain a happy customer.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :)
I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#8When Google Drive and iCloud and One Drive all cropped up, copying the same service with the addition of deeper integration into different devices and software, I was worried Dropbox would be unable to compete. But they've hung in there, and I remain a happy customer.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
I've mainly stayed because I don't want to support the mega-corporations when there's a smaller ($12bn counts as "smaller" these days...) company doing a fine job. That aside, I appreciate that they've mostly stayed focused on the core task of syncing files between computers, that there's no bias in terms of devices or OSes, and that their client software tends to work just a little bit better than the competition.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#9When Google Drive and iCloud and One Drive all cropped up, copying the same service with the addition of deeper integration into different devices and software, I was worried Dropbox would be unable to compete. But they've hung in there, and I remain a happy customer.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
Having used Dropbox and then switched to Google Drive, what had me coming back to Dropbox was how much Dropbox is used for sharing than Google drive.
Because of the rapid growth of Dropbox specifically in regards to sharing it's still used for that so it continues to increase the funnel and reactivate customers, while Google Drive feels more like a personal storage system.
That could be one large factor.
Re: How two strangers set up Dropbox and made billions
#10When Google Drive and iCloud and One Drive all cropped up, copying the same service with the addition of deeper integration into different devices and software, I was worried Dropbox would be unable to compete. But they've hung in there, and I remain a happy customer.
Out of curiousity, what does Dropbox do for you that they don't? Have you stayed because of price, service, features, laziness to switch? :) I personally don't have many storage needs so I just email myself important files, back up some things to USB, and sometimes will add things to Google Drive
I use both Dropbox and Google Drive, and the in-OS integration is a killer feature for me. The ability to just drag and drop into a normal folder (or work from a folder) and have those changes sync is great. I use Google Drive mainly for Docs and collaboration on those documents, not really for other files (due to the "manual" upload process, just a little bit more work to do).