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Dropbox Is in Talks with Advisers for Possible 2017 IPO

167 points by surement 10y ago

jMyles 10y ago
How are we proceeding on the lying, warmongering members of the board of directors front? Because that's a pretty big trust issue if you want me to regard your shares as worth anything.
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  Needs citation?
  - leothekim 10y ago
    I don't have a relevant citation, but I assume it's Condoleeza Rice that the parent commenter is referring to? https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dropbox/advisors https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dropbox/advisors A website with some relevant background: http://www.drop-dropbox.com http://www.drop-dropbox.com
    - bduerst 10y ago
      She also teaches at Stanford - should we drop them and their graduates too? I never got this line of thinking.
      - jMyles 10y ago
        I think she has the capacity to be an effective educator, helping others to avoid doing the evil she has done. But first, she needs to apologize. This is obvious. So yes, I think that anybody who regards her as a compelling part of their education needs to explain how they intend to avoid repeating her mistakes.
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        Worst of all, she's a college football fan.
      - derptron 10y ago
        What don't you get? She is a former National Security Advisor who used to authorize warrantless wiretaps. Do you think this information is more relevant to education or mass data storage?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - barking 10y ago
    Well it's common knowledge that the person he's talking about was a senior member of Bush's cabinet when the war on Iraq in 2003 was launched on a false premise.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Well it's common knowledge that the person he's talking about was a senior member of Bush's cabinet when the war on Iraq in 2003 was launched Can something be "common knowledge" and still be false? While the person involved later became a senior cabinet member as Secretary of State, at the time the war in Iraq was launched, Rice was not only not a "senior member of Bush's cabinet", but she wasn't a member of the cabinet at all. At that time, she was Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (popularly, "National Security Advisor"), a position that is a member of the National Security Council, but not the cabinet.
      - jMyles 10y ago
        By all the accounts of which I'm aware, Rice had just as much of Bush's ear during her time as NSA as Sec of State. Do you have any reason to believe that she was in the dark in 2003?
        mfairbank 10y ago
        Bob Woodward chronicled the access Rice had to Bush in his book "Bush at War"[0]. His impression matches your own. According to Woodward's account, her de facto role as National Security Advisor (before her tenure as Secretary of State) was to meet with the principals (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell) without the President, and then discuss alone with the President the positions of his various cabinet members. Rice met one-on-one with Bush much more often than the others, especially Powell. That said, her explicit role at the time was more about collating data and balancing priorities, not advancing her agenda. But it is definitely fair to say she had the President's ear during this period, perhaps more so than any other national security administration official. On an semi-related note, "Bush at War" is a great, quick read about the months following 9/11, with a breathless day-by-day account of the meetings and phone calls held between the President and his advisors. Woodward had unparalleled access during this period, including multiple in-person interviews with Bush both in Washington and in Crawford. Fair warning, he does not mince words on his dissatisfaction with Bush's performance. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Bush-at-War-Bob-Woodward/dp/0743244613 https://www.amazon.com/Bush-at-War-Bob-Woodward/dp/074324461...
  - jMyles 10y ago
    Of what, exactly? That Rice is still on the board? Or are you trying to rehash whether she is a trust liability for the company? Here are plenty of links to primary sources: http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  Do you feel the same way about Apple? They also have a lying warmonger of some note on their board.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    Are we talking about Ron Sugar here? He has never actually had a position in government where he sold out the public to drop bombs on the children of the other side of the world. So no, I don't put him in the same category as Sec. Rice. However, even if I did: This is definitely Apples-and-Oranges. Apple is a company that is difficult to replicate. A household name. It has established supply chains around the world and a retail presence in many major cities. I don't think that Apple's value is anywhere near as dependent on trust as Dropbox's is. And having a known liar, torturer, and war criminal on your board doesn't scream trust. Now, do I think Apple is a bad company? Hell yeah. I don't use their products either. But I think they're bad more for their behavior vis a vis IP (eg, the Samsung bezel claim) than for the constitution of their board. edit: I totally forgot that they put Al Gore on the board. Is that who you mean? If so, yeah, I don't put him alongside Condi.
  - joering2 10y ago
    I be downvoted into hell but here it goes: Yes; and Apple also has a convicted woman abuser on board... http://qz.com/476599/dr-dre-rapper-turned-apple-guru-wants-you-to-forget-about-all-the-women-hes-beaten-up/ http://qz.com/476599/dr-dre-rapper-turned-apple-guru-wants-y...
  - raesene6 10y ago
    Personally my concerns with Condoleezza Rice were as much to do with her support of warrantless NSA wire-tapping as the Iraq war conduct. The idea of someone who is in favour of the NSA hoovering up as much data as possible being on the board of a company who's job it is to securely manage huge quantities of personal data, just doesn't strike me as a good statement of their concern for personal privacy...
    - derptron 10y ago
      Yeah, Dropbox lost all my interest when they put her on the board. What the hell business does she have in a tech company besides helping put in back doors?
- saynsedit 10y ago
  Hillary Clinton is on their board of directors?
chollida1 10y ago
Founded in 2007. I think its fair to say that dropbox is one of the more successful starups around. So when you join a startup, I think its reasonable to ask them for either: - long option exercise periods after they leave the company, like the 10 years that has been thrown around before. - or written authorization to sell vested options on a secondary market at the market price - or plan to stay with the company for 10+ years, remembering that you probably can't sell for the first 6 months of going public. Because ifyou join a startup where some of your comp is in the form of options, this is what you are signing up for.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jdavis703 10y ago
  Or you could just exercise your options within the 90-day window. Me personally I'd much rather lose a fixed sum of money, then realize I missed out on being a millionaire.
  - nrb 10y ago
    Why exactly would you prefer that over a longer exercise window? What are the odds that the startup you joined 2 years in will successfully exit (even 8 years later in the case of Dropbox)?
  - NhanH 10y ago
    Wouldn't exercising your options be a taxable event? Without a way to liquidate them you are stuck with a big tax bill and still potentially worthless share.
  - chatmasta 10y ago
    Then you might owe an absurd amount of money to the tax man. As far as the IRS is concerned, you need to pay the AMT on the difference between the price per share of Dropbox at exercise time, and your strike price. If you joined before Dropbox went through a couple rounds of funding, this tax bill could easily be in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. You need to get that money from somewhere, but you can't sell on the secondary market, so what do you do?
TAForObvReasons 10y ago
> One of Dropbox’s closest competitors, Box Inc., went public last year at a $1.7 billion valuation -- 29 percent below the value it fetched in a private funding round six months earlier. Box shares traded at $12.88 at 12:36 p.m. in New York, below its $14-a-share IPO price. Will Dropbox valuation be affected by BOX's performance in the last few years?
- j_s 10y ago
  Technically, yes. The correct question is how much! :)
- wslh 10y ago
  > Will Dropbox valuation be affected by BOX's performance in the last few years? It depends. If Dropbox shows that they are [not] profitable and the margins give us a better picture we can ignore Box. Looking at Google Finance the Box numbers are really bad: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABOX https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABOX
- rrggrr 10y ago
  I'm not sure how Box has managed to burn so much cash the past few years, or how they manage to still lose money with revenues of 300m. Post-IPO one would think there might be an incentive to be profitable, particularly when large customer risk assessment includes the financial health of the provider.
  - niftich 10y ago
    They had neither the first-mover advantage (Dropbox), nor massive cash reserves to offer storage at a loss just to compete with Dropbox (Google, Microsoft). They flew out to every single conference about everything to promote Box to people who kept asking, "oh, so you're like Dropbox?"; they bought a bunch of S3 but then they started building their own backend [1], and literally paid people to make 'apps' for their 'platform' [2]. They were always going to have to burn a ton of cash to catch up and it's actually kind of remarkable that they're still around. [1] https://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/why-cloud-storage-startup-box-is-considering-openstack-over-amazon-s3/ https://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/why-cloud-storage-startup-box-... [2] https://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/box-to-pay-mobile-app-developers-based-on-use-so-customers-stick-around/ https://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/box-to-pay-mobile-app-develope...
electriclove 10y ago
It would be interesting to see what the public valuation would be. I don't believe it will be anywhere near the "$10 billion valuation it was awarded in a 2014 funding round."
eldavido 10y ago
Anyone have any sense of their financials? Revenue, cost, etc? Would love to take a stab at valuing their equity although I'm sure their cap structure is a wedding cake of preferences on top of ratchets on top of pro ratas and pari passus and conversion preferences...
- harryh 10y ago
  A lot of the cap structure will simplify at IPO when preferred shares convert to common.
  - eldavido 10y ago
    I guess the situation is different for an existing holder of common vs. someone who's buying at the IPO. Thanks for pointing that out...I've spent too much time inside trying to figure out what my options are worth (SV in general, not Dropbox) ;)
- joshjkim 10y ago
  RE: financials - around $400m in annualized revenue as of last summer (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is-struggling-and-competitors-are-catching-up http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is...). no recent news of their growth, but I would be surprised if they did more than 20-30% user growth since then (not bad, but not a rocketship anymore...which FTR is totally cool with me, even admirable at this stage!) Jives with back envelope calcs: 400m+ users, assume 1% paid users = 4m+ paid users. each user pays something around $100/year (8.99/month if you pay up front, 9.99/month if you bill monthly, some legacy cheaper, some business customers). 4m x $100 = $400m. It's actually not a bad business! =) Not sure about costs, but they are cash flow positive from what they've said publicly (http://www.recode.net/2016/6/14/11937132/dropbox-cash-flow-positive http://www.recode.net/2016/6/14/11937132/dropbox-cash-flow-p...) and that's been confirmed from what I've heard anecdotally/personally from some senior folks over there and some VCs who I think would/should know (and that I trust..ha). so overall, seems like a solid business, i think the issue now is whether they can grow at a rate that's exciting enough to the market to justify a $10b+ valuation...TBD! as one kind of comparison (not definitive by any means, just one that we have the #s to do..): box did around 300m in revenue last year (so less than DB), but Box market cap was around 1.5B at that point, so 5X revenue. if you did the same math to DB, we're looking at around 2B market cap for DB...1/5 of their last raise at 10B =/ could be viewed as example of raising at higher valuation than prudent (not unusual ha), but who knows, maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of a hat =)
sdegutis 10y ago
Look. As a non-business, I recognize the fact that Dropbox is useful for both personal users and businesses. But every, single, time, that I login to their website, they INSIST on suggesting "hey why don't you try Dropbox for Business?" to me. This level of stupidity shakes my confidence in the competence of their upper management, and in Dropbox's future.
- yinghang 10y ago
  Yea I wonder what's up with that........
- ejcx 10y ago
  I pay for dropbox and they do that to me, as well. Why would I want to be a business customer if I'm a paid normal user? Somewhat annoying but maybe it's working for them.
  - sdegutis 10y ago
    I doubt it's actually helping them at all. If anything, they just don't notice, because their business is primarily made up of Dropbox for Business accounts, so even if a paid personal user like me leaves because it's that's so annoying, they're not hurt by it at all. But even then, I rarely use their web interface, so it's not enough to push me away.
- the_watcher 10y ago
  > This level of stupidity Why do you assume this is stupidity? Just because it annoys you doesn't make it stupid. For one, Dropbox makes exponentially more money from a Business user than an individual.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Indeed. It's clearly not annoying enough to deter anyone from logging in if they're still complaining about it.
  - sdegutis 10y ago
nxc18 10y ago
Can someone explain the value proposition of Dropbox to me? They don't do anything that their competitors (OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, etc.) don't do better. Their UI isn't spectacular. They only really have one big product. They charge an insane amount for what they do offer. Their file sync is difficult to control and has an uninspiring client. I get that people end up used to Dropbox, but what do they have to attract new users? Why do people see value here? A decade on, first-mover advantage isn't going to get them (or anyone) very far. It seems like their whole company is a competitor's marketing campaign away from being basically irrelevant. It seems their one hope is business. But why would business choose Dropbox over Office 365, Box, or Google Drive. All of them seem to offer better collaboration/productivity tools. Office Delve is incredible. Google Drive is Google Drive. What's the value here? And then I read articles like these: - http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9372563/dropbox-really-is-a-feature http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9372563/dropbox-really-is-... - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is-struggling-and-competitors-are-catching-up http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is... - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-clock-is-ticking-for-dropbox-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-clock-is-ticking-for-drop... What am I missing?
- j_koreth 10y ago
  Although fairly niche but the lack of Google Drive and OneDrive support in Linux left with me with Dropbox and combined with a free 50g deal from my S4, it was a fine arrangement in the end.
- findjashua 10y ago
  I think they're the only one w linux support? (Not that I expect that to be a significant marketshare)
  - wanda 10y ago
    It's not difficult to mount Box on Linux. Google Drive integration comes built into Nautilus IIRC. There are other solutions for Linux integrations with both. Perhaps not as easy as Dropbox but can't see it being a winning USP. I read somewhere that Google Drive has a Linux client used by Google enployees internally—so if it were significant, it would probably only be a matter of time before this client would be released for public use. I don't think it is significant though.
kin 10y ago
So I have a question about this, for them to be deciding this now, does that mean Dropbox has something to confident about at the moment or it could just mean anything?
econner 10y ago
Hm.. I wonder if this is because they have option grants expiring in 2017 (10 year mark) and are trying to get some liquidity for early employees.
- tkinom 10y ago
  The founders, VC, LP also want their returns (exit).
  - econner 10y ago
    That's a good point. Presumably the funds that invested were raised around 2007 and also have a 10 year window.
ArtDev 10y ago
I still don't use dropbox anymore. There are tons of alternatives, many of which are better anyhow. http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
gsg21 10y ago
I'm a paying Dropbox user (for personal stuff) and I use Google Drive and Box.com at work. Dropbox is far and away the easiest to use. Case in point, my very non-technical grandmother once called me because she was worried there was a virus on her computer, only to find out that she accidentally changed the homepage on her browser. But when it comes to using Dropbox, it's easy for her to navigate and look at her pictures.
- dx034 10y ago
  +1 Also, the sync works much better than with Google Drive. The Google Drive app uses an absurd amount of resources and takes much longer to sync changes.
lyonlim 10y ago
Many many years back, I used Sugarsync but ditched them a few months later for Dropbox when they screwed up my file sync. Recently, I switched from annual to monthly subscription for Dropbox because I wanted to push myself to migrate my files off their service..mainly due to concerns about privacy.. I use Google Drive at work.. it's not great, but it works better than OneDrive. Wanted to use OneDrive as it came with my Office365 subscription..but their Mac and Android clients really need improving. Almost moved to SpiderOak..but stopped due to their poorly designed Android app. I can't seem to get myself off Dropbox. I don't use external hard disks for backup now. I digitize everything, so it's important to find a service I can trust...both on privacy and on sync reliability.. The sad truth is Dropbox clients across different platforms and their sync stability is unmatched in this space.
- toddmorey 10y ago
  I completely agree. What's so nice about DropBox is how little I notice it. I'm a happy customer but interestingly I would be a wary investor. I'm not seeing their growth strategy. I've been looking for them to build on their advantage for about 7 years now. New products they've introduced to satellite around their core sync technology don't ever seem to hit traction. That doesn't mean I think they're a decent business and will stay around. I just don't see much on the horizon that would push the business (and the stock) forward.
bluedino 10y ago
I really think they've missed their time. Dropbox is an incredible product, definitely the best option out there for most people. However, they're just not making enough $ or have enough future growth to be worth it. If they rejected an offer a few years ago, they really are going to be sad when they get an offer for half or one quarter that in a year or two.
- rconti 10y ago
  Interviewed there back in '11. I actually didn't realize they hadn't gone public yet-- yikes.
- steveklabnik 10y ago
  > If they rejected an offer a few years ago, Funny story, that: https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/dropbox-said-no-to-nine-digits-acquisition-offer-from-apple-steve-jobs/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/dropbox-said-no-to-nine-di...
- gcr 10y ago
  There's more to life than getting acquired, right? I'm quite happy they aren't looking for a quick exit. Imagine what a sad "incredible journey" that would be...
whatever_dude 10y ago
Maybe whoever acquires them will finally add support for per-folder exclusions (aka a .dropboxignore file). We can only hope.
tdkl 10y ago
Dropbox is one of the products that I hope it never goes away. Been using it since I got invited to beta in May 2008 and the sync is trustworthy, what can't be said for other solutions (enough issues have been mentioned already). Extended the storage with the specials and treasure hunt, but kinda wish for more flexible plans though, I'd never have a use for full 1TB.
ruffrey 10y ago
I wish they would add something like a .dropboxignore file. It's unusable for software development otherwise. It could be extremely useful.
- cm2187 10y ago
  What is the problem? Constantly uploading to the cloud every build?
  - Corrado 10y ago
    I think it could be annoying to have Dropbox sync things like binaries or temp files. Some builds could generate hundreds of artifacts that are short lived or unwanted in the long run. As it works now, Dropbox would see all of these files and burn up your network (and some CPU) copying them to the cloud, which in turn copies them to your other computers, phones, iPads, etc.
    - gcr 10y ago
      Files on phones and iPads are only download on demand. They're certainly not stored locally.
- samdoshi 10y ago
  It's not Dropbox, but SyncThing does support a `.stignore` file. https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html
- elsurudo 10y ago
  Yeah! I have symlinks to some directories, but I don't necessarily want to sync _all_ files in those directories. I think we're probably the 1% use-case for this though. However, you'd think some dev over at Dropbox would add this feature to scratch his own itch...
- whatever_dude 10y ago
  You and me both. Heck, I posted the same request in this discussion as a snarky comment. It's kind of baffling to me that people have been asking for this feature for years, with requests [1] having hundreds of comments and upvotes on their site, and it's still ignored. "Selective sync" is a very poor substitute. [1] https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&topic=200209235&query=dropboxignore&commit=Search https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&...
eecsninja 10y ago
I wonder if we will see a repeat of this story in the Dropbox IPO: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/big-ipo-tiny-payout-for-many-startup-workers http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/big-ipo-ti...
T2_t2 10y ago
Will DropBox be the first (/only) YC company to go public? I can't remember any others going public ever, can someone correct me on this? Seems weird that, despite being so successful, no YC companies have IPOed before. Seems almost improbable, but I can't find evidence of any going public.
- dharmon 10y ago
  There have been no IPOs. The largest acquisition was Cruise, then Heroku, then OMGPop, then Parse. The fall-off of acq prices is pretty steep, but given that they put up hardly any money ($17k early on, now $120k) the returns are insane. When you look at annualized returns, they actually demolish avg. VC returns just from the number of companies that flip in 1-2 years for $10MM (or more). Their biggest hurdle is scale (in terms of putting a lot of money to work).
  - jd007 10y ago
    dont forget twitch, second largest after cruise i think
vadym909 10y ago
I think this is posturing and a final warning to interested buyers "Buy us now, or we're going public"
ksec 10y ago
I wonder if a Dropbox made NAS linked to a dropbox account make sense. I will then has the best both world. Another problem i have with all current cloud storage is lack of file management features, things like check for duplication by filename or size or hash. Currently I have multiple SD card, USB HDD all scatter around with many duplicate data.

167 points by surement 10y ago

How are we proceeding on the lying, warmongering members of the board of directors front? Because that's a pretty big trust issue if you want me to regard your shares as worth anything.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago
Needs citation?
- leothekim 10y ago
  I don't have a relevant citation, but I assume it's Condoleeza Rice that the parent commenter is referring to? https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dropbox/advisors https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dropbox/advisors A website with some relevant background: http://www.drop-dropbox.com http://www.drop-dropbox.com
  - bduerst 10y ago
    She also teaches at Stanford - should we drop them and their graduates too? I never got this line of thinking.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      I think she has the capacity to be an effective educator, helping others to avoid doing the evil she has done. But first, she needs to apologize. This is obvious. So yes, I think that anybody who regards her as a compelling part of their education needs to explain how they intend to avoid repeating her mistakes.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      Worst of all, she's a college football fan.
    - derptron 10y ago
      What don't you get? She is a former National Security Advisor who used to authorize warrantless wiretaps. Do you think this information is more relevant to education or mass data storage?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- barking 10y ago
  Well it's common knowledge that the person he's talking about was a senior member of Bush's cabinet when the war on Iraq in 2003 was launched on a false premise.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Well it's common knowledge that the person he's talking about was a senior member of Bush's cabinet when the war on Iraq in 2003 was launched Can something be "common knowledge" and still be false? While the person involved later became a senior cabinet member as Secretary of State, at the time the war in Iraq was launched, Rice was not only not a "senior member of Bush's cabinet", but she wasn't a member of the cabinet at all. At that time, she was Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (popularly, "National Security Advisor"), a position that is a member of the National Security Council, but not the cabinet.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      By all the accounts of which I'm aware, Rice had just as much of Bush's ear during her time as NSA as Sec of State. Do you have any reason to believe that she was in the dark in 2003?
      - mfairbank 10y ago
        Bob Woodward chronicled the access Rice had to Bush in his book "Bush at War"[0]. His impression matches your own. According to Woodward's account, her de facto role as National Security Advisor (before her tenure as Secretary of State) was to meet with the principals (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell) without the President, and then discuss alone with the President the positions of his various cabinet members. Rice met one-on-one with Bush much more often than the others, especially Powell. That said, her explicit role at the time was more about collating data and balancing priorities, not advancing her agenda. But it is definitely fair to say she had the President's ear during this period, perhaps more so than any other national security administration official. On an semi-related note, "Bush at War" is a great, quick read about the months following 9/11, with a breathless day-by-day account of the meetings and phone calls held between the President and his advisors. Woodward had unparalleled access during this period, including multiple in-person interviews with Bush both in Washington and in Crawford. Fair warning, he does not mince words on his dissatisfaction with Bush's performance. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Bush-at-War-Bob-Woodward/dp/0743244613 https://www.amazon.com/Bush-at-War-Bob-Woodward/dp/074324461...
- jMyles 10y ago
  Of what, exactly? That Rice is still on the board? Or are you trying to rehash whether she is a trust liability for the company? Here are plenty of links to primary sources: http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/
nsxwolf 10y ago
Do you feel the same way about Apple? They also have a lying warmonger of some note on their board.
- jMyles 10y ago
  Are we talking about Ron Sugar here? He has never actually had a position in government where he sold out the public to drop bombs on the children of the other side of the world. So no, I don't put him in the same category as Sec. Rice. However, even if I did: This is definitely Apples-and-Oranges. Apple is a company that is difficult to replicate. A household name. It has established supply chains around the world and a retail presence in many major cities. I don't think that Apple's value is anywhere near as dependent on trust as Dropbox's is. And having a known liar, torturer, and war criminal on your board doesn't scream trust. Now, do I think Apple is a bad company? Hell yeah. I don't use their products either. But I think they're bad more for their behavior vis a vis IP (eg, the Samsung bezel claim) than for the constitution of their board. edit: I totally forgot that they put Al Gore on the board. Is that who you mean? If so, yeah, I don't put him alongside Condi.
- joering2 10y ago
  I be downvoted into hell but here it goes: Yes; and Apple also has a convicted woman abuser on board... http://qz.com/476599/dr-dre-rapper-turned-apple-guru-wants-you-to-forget-about-all-the-women-hes-beaten-up/ http://qz.com/476599/dr-dre-rapper-turned-apple-guru-wants-y...
- raesene6 10y ago
  Personally my concerns with Condoleezza Rice were as much to do with her support of warrantless NSA wire-tapping as the Iraq war conduct. The idea of someone who is in favour of the NSA hoovering up as much data as possible being on the board of a company who's job it is to securely manage huge quantities of personal data, just doesn't strike me as a good statement of their concern for personal privacy...
  - derptron 10y ago
    Yeah, Dropbox lost all my interest when they put her on the board. What the hell business does she have in a tech company besides helping put in back doors?
saynsedit 10y ago
Hillary Clinton is on their board of directors?

chollida1 10y ago

Founded in 2007. I think its fair to say that dropbox is one of the more successful starups around. So when you join a startup, I think its reasonable to ask them for either: - long option exercise periods after they leave the company, like the 10 years that has been thrown around before. - or written authorization to sell vested options on a secondary market at the market price - or plan to stay with the company for 10+ years, remembering that you probably can't sell for the first 6 months of going public. Because ifyou join a startup where some of your comp is in the form of options, this is what you are signing up for.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jdavis703 10y ago
Or you could just exercise your options within the 90-day window. Me personally I'd much rather lose a fixed sum of money, then realize I missed out on being a millionaire.
- nrb 10y ago
  Why exactly would you prefer that over a longer exercise window? What are the odds that the startup you joined 2 years in will successfully exit (even 8 years later in the case of Dropbox)?
- NhanH 10y ago
  Wouldn't exercising your options be a taxable event? Without a way to liquidate them you are stuck with a big tax bill and still potentially worthless share.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  Then you might owe an absurd amount of money to the tax man. As far as the IRS is concerned, you need to pay the AMT on the difference between the price per share of Dropbox at exercise time, and your strike price. If you joined before Dropbox went through a couple rounds of funding, this tax bill could easily be in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. You need to get that money from somewhere, but you can't sell on the secondary market, so what do you do?

TAForObvReasons 10y ago

> One of Dropbox’s closest competitors, Box Inc., went public last year at a $1.7 billion valuation -- 29 percent below the value it fetched in a private funding round six months earlier. Box shares traded at $12.88 at 12:36 p.m. in New York, below its $14-a-share IPO price. Will Dropbox valuation be affected by BOX's performance in the last few years?

j_s 10y ago
Technically, yes. The correct question is how much! :)
wslh 10y ago
> Will Dropbox valuation be affected by BOX's performance in the last few years? It depends. If Dropbox shows that they are [not] profitable and the margins give us a better picture we can ignore Box. Looking at Google Finance the Box numbers are really bad: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABOX https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABOX
rrggrr 10y ago
I'm not sure how Box has managed to burn so much cash the past few years, or how they manage to still lose money with revenues of 300m. Post-IPO one would think there might be an incentive to be profitable, particularly when large customer risk assessment includes the financial health of the provider.
- niftich 10y ago
  They had neither the first-mover advantage (Dropbox), nor massive cash reserves to offer storage at a loss just to compete with Dropbox (Google, Microsoft). They flew out to every single conference about everything to promote Box to people who kept asking, "oh, so you're like Dropbox?"; they bought a bunch of S3 but then they started building their own backend [1], and literally paid people to make 'apps' for their 'platform' [2]. They were always going to have to burn a ton of cash to catch up and it's actually kind of remarkable that they're still around. [1] https://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/why-cloud-storage-startup-box-is-considering-openstack-over-amazon-s3/ https://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/why-cloud-storage-startup-box-... [2] https://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/box-to-pay-mobile-app-developers-based-on-use-so-customers-stick-around/ https://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/box-to-pay-mobile-app-develope...

electriclove 10y ago

It would be interesting to see what the public valuation would be. I don't believe it will be anywhere near the "$10 billion valuation it was awarded in a 2014 funding round."

eldavido 10y ago

Anyone have any sense of their financials? Revenue, cost, etc? Would love to take a stab at valuing their equity although I'm sure their cap structure is a wedding cake of preferences on top of ratchets on top of pro ratas and pari passus and conversion preferences...

harryh 10y ago
A lot of the cap structure will simplify at IPO when preferred shares convert to common.
- eldavido 10y ago
  I guess the situation is different for an existing holder of common vs. someone who's buying at the IPO. Thanks for pointing that out...I've spent too much time inside trying to figure out what my options are worth (SV in general, not Dropbox) ;)
joshjkim 10y ago
RE: financials - around $400m in annualized revenue as of last summer (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is-struggling-and-competitors-are-catching-up http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is...). no recent news of their growth, but I would be surprised if they did more than 20-30% user growth since then (not bad, but not a rocketship anymore...which FTR is totally cool with me, even admirable at this stage!) Jives with back envelope calcs: 400m+ users, assume 1% paid users = 4m+ paid users. each user pays something around $100/year (8.99/month if you pay up front, 9.99/month if you bill monthly, some legacy cheaper, some business customers). 4m x $100 = $400m. It's actually not a bad business! =) Not sure about costs, but they are cash flow positive from what they've said publicly (http://www.recode.net/2016/6/14/11937132/dropbox-cash-flow-positive http://www.recode.net/2016/6/14/11937132/dropbox-cash-flow-p...) and that's been confirmed from what I've heard anecdotally/personally from some senior folks over there and some VCs who I think would/should know (and that I trust..ha). so overall, seems like a solid business, i think the issue now is whether they can grow at a rate that's exciting enough to the market to justify a $10b+ valuation...TBD! as one kind of comparison (not definitive by any means, just one that we have the #s to do..): box did around 300m in revenue last year (so less than DB), but Box market cap was around 1.5B at that point, so 5X revenue. if you did the same math to DB, we're looking at around 2B market cap for DB...1/5 of their last raise at 10B =/ could be viewed as example of raising at higher valuation than prudent (not unusual ha), but who knows, maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of a hat =)

sdegutis 10y ago

Look. As a non-business, I recognize the fact that Dropbox is useful for both personal users and businesses. But every, single, time, that I login to their website, they INSIST on suggesting "hey why don't you try Dropbox for Business?" to me. This level of stupidity shakes my confidence in the competence of their upper management, and in Dropbox's future.

yinghang 10y ago
Yea I wonder what's up with that........
ejcx 10y ago
I pay for dropbox and they do that to me, as well. Why would I want to be a business customer if I'm a paid normal user? Somewhat annoying but maybe it's working for them.
- sdegutis 10y ago
  I doubt it's actually helping them at all. If anything, they just don't notice, because their business is primarily made up of Dropbox for Business accounts, so even if a paid personal user like me leaves because it's that's so annoying, they're not hurt by it at all. But even then, I rarely use their web interface, so it's not enough to push me away.
the_watcher 10y ago
> This level of stupidity Why do you assume this is stupidity? Just because it annoys you doesn't make it stupid. For one, Dropbox makes exponentially more money from a Business user than an individual.
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Indeed. It's clearly not annoying enough to deter anyone from logging in if they're still complaining about it.
- sdegutis 10y ago

nxc18 10y ago

Can someone explain the value proposition of Dropbox to me? They don't do anything that their competitors (OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, etc.) don't do better. Their UI isn't spectacular. They only really have one big product. They charge an insane amount for what they do offer. Their file sync is difficult to control and has an uninspiring client. I get that people end up used to Dropbox, but what do they have to attract new users? Why do people see value here? A decade on, first-mover advantage isn't going to get them (or anyone) very far. It seems like their whole company is a competitor's marketing campaign away from being basically irrelevant. It seems their one hope is business. But why would business choose Dropbox over Office 365, Box, or Google Drive. All of them seem to offer better collaboration/productivity tools. Office Delve is incredible. Google Drive is Google Drive. What's the value here? And then I read articles like these: - http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9372563/dropbox-really-is-a-feature http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/9372563/dropbox-really-is-... - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is-struggling-and-competitors-are-catching-up http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/dropbox-is... - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-clock-is-ticking-for-dropbox-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-clock-is-ticking-for-drop... What am I missing?

j_koreth 10y ago
Although fairly niche but the lack of Google Drive and OneDrive support in Linux left with me with Dropbox and combined with a free 50g deal from my S4, it was a fine arrangement in the end.
findjashua 10y ago
I think they're the only one w linux support? (Not that I expect that to be a significant marketshare)
- wanda 10y ago
  It's not difficult to mount Box on Linux. Google Drive integration comes built into Nautilus IIRC. There are other solutions for Linux integrations with both. Perhaps not as easy as Dropbox but can't see it being a winning USP. I read somewhere that Google Drive has a Linux client used by Google enployees internally—so if it were significant, it would probably only be a matter of time before this client would be released for public use. I don't think it is significant though.

kin 10y ago

So I have a question about this, for them to be deciding this now, does that mean Dropbox has something to confident about at the moment or it could just mean anything?

econner 10y ago

Hm.. I wonder if this is because they have option grants expiring in 2017 (10 year mark) and are trying to get some liquidity for early employees.

tkinom 10y ago
The founders, VC, LP also want their returns (exit).
- econner 10y ago
  That's a good point. Presumably the funds that invested were raised around 2007 and also have a 10 year window.

ArtDev 10y ago

I still don't use dropbox anymore. There are tons of alternatives, many of which are better anyhow. http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

gsg21 10y ago

I'm a paying Dropbox user (for personal stuff) and I use Google Drive and Box.com at work. Dropbox is far and away the easiest to use. Case in point, my very non-technical grandmother once called me because she was worried there was a virus on her computer, only to find out that she accidentally changed the homepage on her browser. But when it comes to using Dropbox, it's easy for her to navigate and look at her pictures.

dx034 10y ago
+1 Also, the sync works much better than with Google Drive. The Google Drive app uses an absurd amount of resources and takes much longer to sync changes.

lyonlim 10y ago

Many many years back, I used Sugarsync but ditched them a few months later for Dropbox when they screwed up my file sync. Recently, I switched from annual to monthly subscription for Dropbox because I wanted to push myself to migrate my files off their service..mainly due to concerns about privacy.. I use Google Drive at work.. it's not great, but it works better than OneDrive. Wanted to use OneDrive as it came with my Office365 subscription..but their Mac and Android clients really need improving. Almost moved to SpiderOak..but stopped due to their poorly designed Android app. I can't seem to get myself off Dropbox. I don't use external hard disks for backup now. I digitize everything, so it's important to find a service I can trust...both on privacy and on sync reliability.. The sad truth is Dropbox clients across different platforms and their sync stability is unmatched in this space.

toddmorey 10y ago
I completely agree. What's so nice about DropBox is how little I notice it. I'm a happy customer but interestingly I would be a wary investor. I'm not seeing their growth strategy. I've been looking for them to build on their advantage for about 7 years now. New products they've introduced to satellite around their core sync technology don't ever seem to hit traction. That doesn't mean I think they're a decent business and will stay around. I just don't see much on the horizon that would push the business (and the stock) forward.

bluedino 10y ago

I really think they've missed their time. Dropbox is an incredible product, definitely the best option out there for most people. However, they're just not making enough $ or have enough future growth to be worth it. If they rejected an offer a few years ago, they really are going to be sad when they get an offer for half or one quarter that in a year or two.

rconti 10y ago
Interviewed there back in '11. I actually didn't realize they hadn't gone public yet-- yikes.
steveklabnik 10y ago
> If they rejected an offer a few years ago, Funny story, that: https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/dropbox-said-no-to-nine-digits-acquisition-offer-from-apple-steve-jobs/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/dropbox-said-no-to-nine-di...
gcr 10y ago
There's more to life than getting acquired, right? I'm quite happy they aren't looking for a quick exit. Imagine what a sad "incredible journey" that would be...

whatever_dude 10y ago

Maybe whoever acquires them will finally add support for per-folder exclusions (aka a .dropboxignore file). We can only hope.

tdkl 10y ago

Dropbox is one of the products that I hope it never goes away. Been using it since I got invited to beta in May 2008 and the sync is trustworthy, what can't be said for other solutions (enough issues have been mentioned already). Extended the storage with the specials and treasure hunt, but kinda wish for more flexible plans though, I'd never have a use for full 1TB.

ruffrey 10y ago

I wish they would add something like a .dropboxignore file. It's unusable for software development otherwise. It could be extremely useful.

cm2187 10y ago
What is the problem? Constantly uploading to the cloud every build?
- Corrado 10y ago
  I think it could be annoying to have Dropbox sync things like binaries or temp files. Some builds could generate hundreds of artifacts that are short lived or unwanted in the long run. As it works now, Dropbox would see all of these files and burn up your network (and some CPU) copying them to the cloud, which in turn copies them to your other computers, phones, iPads, etc.
  - gcr 10y ago
    Files on phones and iPads are only download on demand. They're certainly not stored locally.
samdoshi 10y ago
It's not Dropbox, but SyncThing does support a `.stignore` file. https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html
elsurudo 10y ago
Yeah! I have symlinks to some directories, but I don't necessarily want to sync _all_ files in those directories. I think we're probably the 1% use-case for this though. However, you'd think some dev over at Dropbox would add this feature to scratch his own itch...
whatever_dude 10y ago
You and me both. Heck, I posted the same request in this discussion as a snarky comment. It's kind of baffling to me that people have been asking for this feature for years, with requests [1] having hundreds of comments and upvotes on their site, and it's still ignored. "Selective sync" is a very poor substitute. [1] https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&topic=200209235&query=dropboxignore&commit=Search https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&...

eecsninja 10y ago

I wonder if we will see a repeat of this story in the Dropbox IPO: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/big-ipo-tiny-payout-for-many-startup-workers http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-17/big-ipo-ti...

T2_t2 10y ago

Will DropBox be the first (/only) YC company to go public? I can't remember any others going public ever, can someone correct me on this? Seems weird that, despite being so successful, no YC companies have IPOed before. Seems almost improbable, but I can't find evidence of any going public.

dharmon 10y ago
There have been no IPOs. The largest acquisition was Cruise, then Heroku, then OMGPop, then Parse. The fall-off of acq prices is pretty steep, but given that they put up hardly any money ($17k early on, now $120k) the returns are insane. When you look at annualized returns, they actually demolish avg. VC returns just from the number of companies that flip in 1-2 years for $10MM (or more). Their biggest hurdle is scale (in terms of putting a lot of money to work).
- jd007 10y ago
  dont forget twitch, second largest after cruise i think

vadym909 10y ago

I think this is posturing and a final warning to interested buyers "Buy us now, or we're going public"

ksec 10y ago

I wonder if a Dropbox made NAS linked to a dropbox account make sense. I will then has the best both world. Another problem i have with all current cloud storage is lack of file management features, things like check for duplication by filename or size or hash. Currently I have multiple SD card, USB HDD all scatter around with many duplicate data.