The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 14 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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.”
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.”
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.”
Dropbox accidentally became cash flow positive shortly after its public launch
“We were very careful to get the product right through the beta, and then at public launch, we turned on the paid version, and we sort of became accidentally cash flow positive after that, because it was just growing so quickly.”
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…”
Carter Was an Early Investor in Spotify, Uber, Dropbox, and Slack
“Spotify, Warby, Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Slack really great companies that we're proud of.”
Troy Carter Was an Early Investor in Spotify, Uber, and Slack
“Yeah, yeah, Spotify, Warby, Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Slack really great companies that we're proud of.”
Dropbox exited consumer products because its most profitable users were at work
“Our happiest and most profitable customers were using Dropbox at work. And so, we decided to go all in on, on, for all intents and purposes, getting out of the consumer business.”
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.”
Arash Ferdowsi dropped out of MIT after a few coffee dates
“No, it was a series of conversations, you know, but not a lot, you know, it was like the equivalent of a few days. If you're, you know, a few coffee dates, basically, and I'm like, alright, I'm expecting to have to talk to the parents, and like, do all this st…”
Paul Graham emailed Drew Houston requiring him to find a co-founder
“And I get a one-line email from Paul Grime. Saying, they like the idea, certainly liked your software, but you need a co-founder.”
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…”