Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston explains how turning on the paid version at public launch quickly made the company cash flow positive.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Jobs told Drew Houston Dropbox was a feature, not a product
“He was like, alright, well, in so many ways, he's like, well, you guys are a feature, not a product. You know, we're gonna have to build our competitor, and I guess we'll have to get to work on, you know, in so many words, killing you guys.”
Insight
Cloud file sync only became a mainstream consumer need after the iPhone
“This only became a mainstream need after the iPhone because most people had one computer at home, but then suddenly with a smartphone, everybody's got two. And for the first time, you need to get stuff back and forth very easily, and the only way to do that is…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Drew Houston declined Mark Zuckerberg's 2009 attempt to acquire Dropbox
“He was interested potentially in acquiring Dropbox. We were still building, so we weren't really interested in that.”
Insight
Searching public human knowledge is easier than searching internal company knowledge
“We live in a world where it's easier to search all of human knowledge than my company's knowledge.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Drew Houston named Dropbox after shared folders used at LAN parties
“One thing we would always do is everybody would set up a shared folder called a Dropbox. On their computer. So I'm like, maybe I should just call it Dropbox. And that was, it was really that I am conversation where, where I settled on the name and I'm just lik…”
Assertion Supported
Drew Houston's initial Dropbox screencast topped Hacker News for two days
“And then I posted my demo video to Hacker News, and it hit the top of Hacker News for like two days.”