Again no slight intended. If they have the money they might as well enjoy it (I did when I was young and in the same situation). But for a company that had its first release what about 2 years ago they're living large.
The 90s are back after all.
What? Company that generates a metric shit-ton of revenue is spending some of it on employee perks, and this is somehow indicative of a bubble?
I was under the impression that the 90s were all about lavish spending without revenue. Although I guess people will see any trend they want to see if they try hard enough...
At the rate at which they are going, I can almost guarantee you that their public filings - or the first public confirmation of their financials - will be bombshellish (if it is anything like I suspect, and I am seeing no evidence to suggest that it is not - in fact, this video further confirmed my impressions).
Btw, I don't mean it as a bash against Dropbox. I just feel like they have discovered a pot of gold, and are being shy about it - heck, that makes total sense. If I were them, I would probably do the same thing until it was too late for anybody to clue in and catch up. So that might be what they are doing. Can't say I blame them, just wish I got confirmation - for my own curiosity's sake.
If that is the case, it's a HUGE deal. No hyperbole can do it justice.
But how can it be viable? Like most files in my account are personal. Only few are such that others too might have them. Isn't it same for everyone? I think most people have mostly unique files in their account.
So how can dropbox rely on the model mentioned in the link?
When I left SF all those old buildings off Market were the cheapest options in The City. Also, you could usually take over the lease for cheap from some other startup wipeout.
As a Brit, this made me laugh.
I'd agree with you about watching out for dotcom excess if it wasn't so inaccurate in this case. :-)
FWIW, I haven't watched any other "TC Cribs" videos, so I don't want to generalize. Maybe it's just Dropbox. I'm checking out other videos now.
(I may get downvoted for my slightly negative view here, but it is my opinion and I'm sticking with it)
Also it would be great to know what kind of perks they do get (eg food, free lunches, dinners, or whatever).
Looking at the offices is nice, but it would be great to hear more from the people themselves (i.e. not just the ceo or the chaperon).
But if I were one of the investors, I'd probably be pretty PO'd to see how my money was being spent.
Not since the dotcom boom have I seen that kind of place. Startups seem to want to run kinda lean these days, so they can be more agile. (That's not to say that the folks shouldn't be well equipped, which it looks like they are, but custom artwork and a DDR machine?) And clearly too much floor space for their size. It'd be a far better use of their funds to operate a smaller office, then move when they outgrew it.
It could be worse, the whole place could be full of $900 Aeron chairs.
Oh wait, it was.
How about paying $20,000 for a recruiter to find a world-class engineer and get them to leave Google to join your never-been-heard-about startup?
How about paying $50,000 to a recruiter to conduct a VP of Sales search and run the process for you?
Aeron chairs, cool pictures and desks all make an office more enjoyable, and are cheap by comparison.
I'd be PO'd to find that these guys dropped $50k recruiting a sales VP also. I'd imagine that that custom stone conference table probably ran around $50k (they ain't cheap). I'd probably even be able to make a safe bet that just the "stuff" in their conference room cost somewhere between $100k to $200k.
Everything in the video just didn't give me the impression of being good ways to spend money. I think the number of people in this thread who are acting kinda creeped out about their office lends me some support.
If anything the DB guys should be heads down figuring out their next product. It won't take much for Microsoft or Apple to just build something like this into their next rev of their OSs or in some patch and simply put them out of business. They have a great product and a good revenue stream, time to start figuring out the next step.
If that step is to sell the company? I certainly wouldn't want to think that I'm buying all this crap along with the corporate assets for my purchase price.
All that said, I'm really just bitching, if they are paying the bills and have cash left over for this stuff, more power to them. It really does look like a cool office and it's a fantastically cool company with a brilliant product. Their continued success is something to be praised, that's for sure.
multi-millions profitable proven business: run premium. afford to hire and provide for the very best. you've solved the product-market-money problem. enjoy life. steak, baby.
He walks into people, unsuccessfully tries walking backwards while talking, missed fist pound etc. It's amusing.
There are rumours they're moving away from Amazon, however: http://www.quora.com/Why-is-Dropbox-moving-away-from-EC2
Anyone has insights on this?
The support team is pretty solid though. They have a hard job and do it well.
No such luck.
Instead, that looked like the tour of a kindergarten: here we dance, here we play, here we sing, here we eat, and the view is great.
While I find that stuff interesting, that's not the show they are doing. It's MTV Cribs for startups. And that really didn't exist before this.
Also, it can give you the technical chops, contacts, and pedigree to eventually become a generally-self-employed 41-year-old father who works fewer hours.
Well, cool office though. I am a dropbox user myself and love the service!
Um. Did you just sit your sweaty ass on the corner of my desk so you can lean over and chat to the dude sitting next to me? WTF?
Programming (and games programming, especially) seems to attract a lot of ADHD types.
The best part is that Drew isn't enclosed in some corner office. He sits in the open with his team. Big thumbs up.
