Jobs tried to buy Dropbox, from Forbes profile of Dropbox and cofounder Drew Houston
Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
forbes.com
Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
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Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#2Press release (and TC) says 45+ million users. Forbes says 50 million. I think 50mm is more like it.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#3Does Forbes.com have a print URL? I couldn't find one (did find a print.css which does almost nothing to optimize for printing), and I'd rather not encourage their splitting the article onto 4 separate pages by clicking through.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#4"Ferdowsi from the start insisted Dropbox’s home page be a simple stick-figure video showing what the product does. No table of features and pricing; instead, a story about a guy who loses stuff and goes on a trip to Africa."
This made me realise I'd never been to the Dropbox homepage. I heard about the company here on HN (Drew's YC Application form is a great read), and I didn't have a need at that time - about 6 months later I took on a global project and one of the first emails I got from the client was asking me to sign up for Dropbox so we could collaborate.
As the article notes, that word of mouth (I've passed it on numerous times since) has driven growth, perhaps more than the homepage. After all - it just works.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#5How many people would sit in front of Steve Jobs, refuse to a hundreds of millions acquisition offer, just before Apple enters their market.
You got to admire Houston. He might reach the moon.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#6How many people would sit in front of Steve Jobs, refuse to a hundreds of millions acquisition offer, just before Apple enters their market. You got to admire Houston. He might reach the moon.
The dividing line between stupid and brilliant is usually determined retrospectively.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#7Sorry, I don't read articles divided in pages. Fuck you Forbes.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#8"Jobs had been tracking a young software developer named Drew Houston, who blasted his way onto Apple’s radar screen when he reverse-engineered Apple’s file system so that his startup’s logo, an unfolding box, appeared elegantly tucked inside. Not even an Apple SWAT team had been able to do that."
Can anyone throw more context around this hack. Technical challenges to accomplish this will be bonus.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#9Then come Chris, Jason and Joe (who has a Dropbox tattoo on his arm because he feels “Drew is changing the world”), more MIT brothers aiming to live a California dream they all imagined back in Cambridge as “billionaires, bottles and babes.”
Eww, that's offputting.
Re: Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup
#10[deleted]