4 ms·

Anyone got a link to a non-paywalled version? Also - I love dropbox as much as anyone, but do they have the numbers to justify a 10B valuation?

keeptrying 13y ago
Go through google and you can read it. Google for "dropbox valuation"
TheMakeA 13y ago
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579327001976757542 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:online.... p.s: I thought this behavior was against Google's ToS...
- dictum 13y ago
  I don't even know what Google's terms of service are anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7030768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7030768
- patio11 13y ago
  It is not only not against ToS, it is behavior which is specifically recommended by Google. The term of art is "first click free." https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536?hl=en First click free is a multilayered Faustian bargain with the traditional print media. It preserves Google's ability to give their users what they want, which is searches which show high-quality, free information, like NYT or WSJ articles. It allows the NYT/WSJ/etc to remain on the only Internet which matters, which is the Internet you find at google.com. Also, the not-so-subtle threat is that if you fail to implement first-click-free, perhaps because you believe your information is worth paying for, then Google will send navigational searches for your articles to scraper sites.
paulfurtado 13y ago
Google the exact article title and follow the link from Google to WSJ. For whatever reason, it seems like they don't paywall traffic from Google searches.
- ama729 13y ago
  They use the HTTP referer for that, forging it work just as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer
mattmaroon 13y ago
$200m in revenue and solid growth is pretty strong. It's at least not unreasonable.
- sosborn 13y ago
  If you are going to look at revenue you need to look at expenses as well. Revenue by itself means nothing.
- joelrunyon 13y ago
  So 50x revenue? That's better than some but still seems pretty generous.
- melvinmt 13y ago
  What about, you know, profits?
k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Also - I love dropbox as much as anyone, but do they have the numbers to justify a 10B valuation?" I don't know but I am always surprised at the people I hear using Dropbox. I always look at it as a techie kind of service but most non-geek business people I interact with use it to share files, family members use it to store photos etc.
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  At least in the UK, they've been partnering with mobile carriers (at least Three) to pre-install their app. They sold my dad on Dropbox through Three about 3-4 years ago now, it's pretty genius because mobile sales people love to talk about special extras and an actually useful preinstalled app is pretty rare. It's some great user acquisition, but he's not a customer and actually I don't know anybody who is.
  - byoung2 13y ago
    Most Samsung Android devices come with Dropbox installed, and you get 50GB free for 2 years. With auto-upload of pictures and video, it is a great way to get people hooked. When those 2 years run out, and you have 10s of GB of pictures and videos already stored in Dropbox, $10 will be a small price to pay to keep it there.
- dhoulb 13y ago
  I make it a required purchase for family members now. On any new computer, the first thing I do is symlink the desktop and the documents folder to Dropbox. That way, I never get support queries from family members wondering where they put something, and it's almost impossible for them to save something in a location that's not backed up. And the backup is immediate and automatic. It's pretty perfect. If you've got two or more computers, everything's the same everywhere, and you can get to any file on your computer from the cloud. I know some of this, cloud sync, cloud backup, and cloud access, is possible through combinations of other software, but Dropbox packages it all so well. I don't think it's just for geeks any more.
  - 13y ago
venomsnake 13y ago
Are they worth 10 instagrams or 5 tumblrs? Currently the valuations seem to be somewhat detached from the numbers while the investors are adapting to the huge risk/pay off PG wrote about a few months back. http://paulgraham.com/swan.html http://paulgraham.com/swan.html
- clarky07 13y ago
  I don't know, they have > 200 million more revenue than instagram. I'd certainly rather own Dropbox than Instagram.

keeptrying 13y ago

Go through google and you can read it. Google for "dropbox valuation"

TheMakeA 13y ago

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579327001976757542 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:online.... p.s: I thought this behavior was against Google's ToS...

dictum 13y ago
I don't even know what Google's terms of service are anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7030768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7030768
patio11 13y ago
It is not only not against ToS, it is behavior which is specifically recommended by Google. The term of art is "first click free." https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536?hl=en First click free is a multilayered Faustian bargain with the traditional print media. It preserves Google's ability to give their users what they want, which is searches which show high-quality, free information, like NYT or WSJ articles. It allows the NYT/WSJ/etc to remain on the only Internet which matters, which is the Internet you find at google.com. Also, the not-so-subtle threat is that if you fail to implement first-click-free, perhaps because you believe your information is worth paying for, then Google will send navigational searches for your articles to scraper sites.

paulfurtado 13y ago

Google the exact article title and follow the link from Google to WSJ. For whatever reason, it seems like they don't paywall traffic from Google searches.

ama729 13y ago
They use the HTTP referer for that, forging it work just as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer

mattmaroon 13y ago

$200m in revenue and solid growth is pretty strong. It's at least not unreasonable.

sosborn 13y ago
If you are going to look at revenue you need to look at expenses as well. Revenue by itself means nothing.
joelrunyon 13y ago
So 50x revenue? That's better than some but still seems pretty generous.
melvinmt 13y ago
What about, you know, profits?

k-mcgrady 13y ago

>> "Also - I love dropbox as much as anyone, but do they have the numbers to justify a 10B valuation?" I don't know but I am always surprised at the people I hear using Dropbox. I always look at it as a techie kind of service but most non-geek business people I interact with use it to share files, family members use it to store photos etc.

mcintyre1994 13y ago
At least in the UK, they've been partnering with mobile carriers (at least Three) to pre-install their app. They sold my dad on Dropbox through Three about 3-4 years ago now, it's pretty genius because mobile sales people love to talk about special extras and an actually useful preinstalled app is pretty rare. It's some great user acquisition, but he's not a customer and actually I don't know anybody who is.
- byoung2 13y ago
  Most Samsung Android devices come with Dropbox installed, and you get 50GB free for 2 years. With auto-upload of pictures and video, it is a great way to get people hooked. When those 2 years run out, and you have 10s of GB of pictures and videos already stored in Dropbox, $10 will be a small price to pay to keep it there.
dhoulb 13y ago
I make it a required purchase for family members now. On any new computer, the first thing I do is symlink the desktop and the documents folder to Dropbox. That way, I never get support queries from family members wondering where they put something, and it's almost impossible for them to save something in a location that's not backed up. And the backup is immediate and automatic. It's pretty perfect. If you've got two or more computers, everything's the same everywhere, and you can get to any file on your computer from the cloud. I know some of this, cloud sync, cloud backup, and cloud access, is possible through combinations of other software, but Dropbox packages it all so well. I don't think it's just for geeks any more.
- 13y ago

venomsnake 13y ago

Are they worth 10 instagrams or 5 tumblrs? Currently the valuations seem to be somewhat detached from the numbers while the investors are adapting to the huge risk/pay off PG wrote about a few months back. http://paulgraham.com/swan.html http://paulgraham.com/swan.html

clarky07 13y ago
I don't know, they have > 200 million more revenue than instagram. I'd certainly rather own Dropbox than Instagram.