<story><title>Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/technology/dropbox-may-not-be-lebron-james-but-it-is-still-in-the-game.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>malchow</author><text>What if -- hold your breath! -- Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror!</text></item><item><author>zer0defex</author><text>Nail on the head right here. The only thing Dropbox has these days is consumer confidence in it&amp;#x27;s syncing process. Beyond that, they trail every competitor feature-wise and frankly, they are succeeding despite their management, not because of it. Recent product enhancements have been, let&amp;#x27;s be honest, mediocre at best across the board and show no signs of that changing anytime soon. They exist now solely due to brand recognition when it comes to cloud file sync&amp;#x27;ing and the moment one of their competitors cracks the consumer confidence equation with the brand image to match, Dropbox is done.</text></item><item><author>Spooky23</author><text>&amp;gt; Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease.&lt;p&gt;Honest question: WTF are they doing?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>subdane</author><text>Their investors will revolt. Their investors need 10X returns in the next couple years to satisfy their fund&amp;#x27;s existence to their LPs. Funds need a few big wins like Hollywood studios need a couple blockbusters every year. Dropbox&amp;#x27;s investors are counting on them being a blockbuster. Dropbox&amp;#x27;s private valuation is an order of magnitude higher than Box&amp;#x27;s public valuation. And Box has a bigger sales team, more revenue, and more inroads into big enterprise than Dropbox. So it&amp;#x27;s a real pickle and dividends aren&amp;#x27;t going to get them out of it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/technology/dropbox-may-not-be-lebron-james-but-it-is-still-in-the-game.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>malchow</author><text>What if -- hold your breath! -- Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror!</text></item><item><author>zer0defex</author><text>Nail on the head right here. The only thing Dropbox has these days is consumer confidence in it&amp;#x27;s syncing process. Beyond that, they trail every competitor feature-wise and frankly, they are succeeding despite their management, not because of it. Recent product enhancements have been, let&amp;#x27;s be honest, mediocre at best across the board and show no signs of that changing anytime soon. They exist now solely due to brand recognition when it comes to cloud file sync&amp;#x27;ing and the moment one of their competitors cracks the consumer confidence equation with the brand image to match, Dropbox is done.</text></item><item><author>Spooky23</author><text>&amp;gt; Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease.&lt;p&gt;Honest question: WTF are they doing?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tholmes</author><text>Companies like that don&amp;#x27;t usually hire 600 people in 12 months, though.&lt;p&gt;Buuut I guess they could. I guess it just kind of looks like the explosive hiring you see sometimes when a company has projected huge growth but then falls flat and realizes it has way too many employees :(</text></comment>