I wouldn't call them stupid. I assume they did what was right for them. More power to them. They should do what they want and those calling them stupid are clueless. Money was obviously not their primary motivation.
So why do you presume to justify their decision based on money? They don't care what anyone here thinks about it. If you want to talk about money, Apple's offer was money in hand — hard cash. Their valuation at $4B is just paper — vapor — an opinion (and not a very realistic one, I suspect.)
$4B paper value. $250M in actual cash as of now. And they got to build the company the way they wish.
Actually, money was a primary motivation. One of the founders famously said "billions, bottles and babes" when asked why he wanted to start a company.
For every 100 companies like Groupon, you get a Facebook or Amazon - companies that exist for the journey rather than a destination. Dropbox looks to be interested in the journey as well.
$4B paper value. $250M in actual cash as of now. And they got to build the company the way they wish.
Actually, money was a primary motivation. One of the founders famously said "billions, bottles and babes" when asked why he wanted to start a company.
For every 100 companies like Groupon, you get a Facebook or Amazon - companies that exist for the journey rather than a destination. Dropbox looks to be interested in the journey as well.
$250M in financing is not cash, it's investment. Not the same thing. It goes into the company, not to the stakeholders.
Dropbox was novel for the time and is still incredibly useful, but trust me, it will become more irrrelevant as time passes. Everyone is baking in similar functionality in their ecosystems and OS, and it will be only a matter of time before dropbox is simply a service that duplicates native functionality for most people. Yes, he had 'guts' to say no, but there's a fine line between that and irrational hubris/pride/stupidity. There's something to be said of taking a good opportunity when one presents itself, after a rational look at the situation. I simply can't see dropbox becoming MORE valuable than it is now, simply less- this is the only reasonable conclusion when taking a birds-eye view of the industry.
steve jobs and woz tried to sell off apple in the early days for some quick big cash. what if they had succeeded? unlike this guy, they were forced to carry on with the apple computer and look what happened.
the dropbox guys could have taken the money, bill gates could have stayed at Harvard, apple could have sold to commodore. life is strange and no one knows the future.
That sounds like an offer of around 6,000 times what Apple offered to Dropbox. Turning down Google's generous offer may have been a huge blunder.
But the current situation is very different.
Indeed. Dropbox has a product and provides value, a business model and actual customers. Groupon is a ponzy scheme that will be the Pets.com of the oughts.
What if Drop Box had money to counter-offer to buy Apple! Think Steve would have sold?
Money isn't everything... Guess, like Steve, they are doing what they love!
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Apple never really belonged to Steve. He would not have had any right to say yes or no.
But when you're talking about other people's money, the officers of a corporation have a fiduciary duty to present such offers to the company, via the Board.
Just because Steve may have done what he loved would be no excuse whatsoever for cutting the owners of Apple off from potentially lucrative deals.
In the same manner, if the owners of Dropbox acted as you suggest, and potentially screwed their investors because they wanted to "do what they love", then IMO they belong in jail.
$250M in financing is not cash, it's investment. Not the same thing. It goes into the company, not to the stakeholders.
That's not necessarily true.
It's not uncommon practice to use Series B, C, etc. to pay out to series A investors, not to mention founders. Not saying all $250M will be used this way. Not saying even $1 will be used this way. But don't be surprised if some of it is. If so, this would be done with the understanding of the new investors, who then expect to be similarly paid out in the next round. Furthermore, some VCs like this kind of arrangement because they are effectively buying shares from early investors and founders, and thus fewer new shares will be created.
Hopefully, Dropbox is not doing this, or not doing it in a big way.
It's not uncommon practice to use Series B, C, etc. to pay out to series A investors, not to mention founders. Not saying all $250M will be used this way. Not saying even $1 will be used this way. But don't be surprised if some of it is. If so, this would be done with the understanding of the new investors, who then expect to be similarly paid out in the next round. Furthermore, some VCs like this kind of arrangement because they are effectively buying shares from early investors and founders, and thus fewer new shares will be created.
Hopefully, Dropbox is not doing this, or not doing it in a big way.
Possible, but not at all likely that more than a minority percentage of that $250M goes to the stakeholders. The apple money (however much it was) all would have.
haha.. GL getting a better offer for something that will easily become obsolete.
talk about missing opportunities.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by monstrosity
what a dumbass! what future does dropbox have now? Probably not a lot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Apple bought NeXT and all it's talent and IP for $400 Million. Macrumors is reporting they turned down $800 Million for a file sharing app.
Brain dead.
Then there's this:
"Forbes remarks that Dropbox is now up to over 50 million users, and should reach $240 million in 2011 revenue despite 96 percent of its subscribers being on the free plan. The company only has 70 workers, and therefore grosses about three times more per person than Google. Sales should at least double in 2012 even without adding any customers, claims Houston."
Maybe you all should look into the financials more before calling other people stupid. That's assuming you can understand what revenue, sales and profits are.
"Forbes remarks that Dropbox is now up to over 50 million users, and should reach $240 million in 2011 revenue despite 96 percent of its subscribers being on the free plan. The company only has 70 workers, and therefore grosses about three times more per person than Google. Sales should at least double in 2012 even without adding any customers, claims Houston."
Maybe you all should look into the financials more before calling other people stupid. That's assuming you can understand what revenue, sales and profits are.
Well a more precise number would be expected cash flow.
I understand what you are saying, but to them it wasn't a missing feature. Photostream holds the last 1000/30days worth of photos then automatically deletes.
It was designed for people to decide what to keep, not delete.
I realize for some that is an issue, because there are pics some people want to delete immediately, photostream just wasn't designed with them in mind.
Honestly, it an incremental feature that will be there soon enough. The ability to share your photostream would also be useful...
The people who make the valuation are the people who are selling the deal. Might there be a bit of perverse incentive?
That's fine to take that stance, but they will definitely earn $240mil this year in revenue. 4 billion might be an overstatement, but 1-2 billion isn't far off based on their current revenue (that's 10 figures for those keeping track).
And the fact they still run their business and are responsible for 70 employees/families, might be something they put a high value on. They might be a-holes- who knows, but one thing is for sure- they, just like anyone who makes a business from nothing to a million (or 240 million in this case)- is far from "stupid". They are intuitive and brilliant compared to your normal person.
Off subject- iCloud is genius- I love the calendar and address book a ton, as well as photo stream. Two peeves- cant delete from photo stream, and my yahoo email still wont sync from my iMac/MacBook to my iPhones/iPad. Only .me accounts. I hate that the most (searching for a sent email but it won't show up on my idevice because I sent it from my iMac).
Drop box is brilliant in its own right. I can send anything, to any computer, and SHARE it with any other account anywhere. Wow... I'm glad apple actually didn't get this one.
Comments
Rubbish.
The only rubbish here is your failed attempt to be condescending.
I wouldn't call them stupid. I assume they did what was right for them. More power to them. They should do what they want and those calling them stupid are clueless. Money was obviously not their primary motivation.
So why do you presume to justify their decision based on money? They don't care what anyone here thinks about it. If you want to talk about money, Apple's offer was money in hand — hard cash. Their valuation at $4B is just paper — vapor — an opinion (and not a very realistic one, I suspect.)
$4B paper value. $250M in actual cash as of now. And they got to build the company the way they wish.
Actually, money was a primary motivation. One of the founders famously said "billions, bottles and babes" when asked why he wanted to start a company.
For every 100 companies like Groupon, you get a Facebook or Amazon - companies that exist for the journey rather than a destination. Dropbox looks to be interested in the journey as well.
This reminds me of Groupon rejecting a $6 BILLION offer from Google. Traffic to Groupon has since fallen off a cliff.
That sounds like an offer of around 6,000 times what Apple offered to Dropbox. Turning down Google's generous offer may have been a huge blunder.
But the current situation is very different.
$4B paper value. $250M in actual cash as of now. And they got to build the company the way they wish.
Actually, money was a primary motivation. One of the founders famously said "billions, bottles and babes" when asked why he wanted to start a company.
For every 100 companies like Groupon, you get a Facebook or Amazon - companies that exist for the journey rather than a destination. Dropbox looks to be interested in the journey as well.
$250M in financing is not cash, it's investment. Not the same thing. It goes into the company, not to the stakeholders.
Dropbox was novel for the time and is still incredibly useful, but trust me, it will become more irrrelevant as time passes. Everyone is baking in similar functionality in their ecosystems and OS, and it will be only a matter of time before dropbox is simply a service that duplicates native functionality for most people. Yes, he had 'guts' to say no, but there's a fine line between that and irrational hubris/pride/stupidity. There's something to be said of taking a good opportunity when one presents itself, after a rational look at the situation. I simply can't see dropbox becoming MORE valuable than it is now, simply less- this is the only reasonable conclusion when taking a birds-eye view of the industry.
steve jobs and woz tried to sell off apple in the early days for some quick big cash. what if they had succeeded? unlike this guy, they were forced to carry on with the apple computer and look what happened.
the dropbox guys could have taken the money, bill gates could have stayed at Harvard, apple could have sold to commodore. life is strange and no one knows the future.
That sounds like an offer of around 6,000 times what Apple offered to Dropbox. Turning down Google's generous offer may have been a huge blunder.
But the current situation is very different.
Indeed. Dropbox has a product and provides value, a business model and actual customers. Groupon is a ponzy scheme that will be the Pets.com of the oughts.
What if Drop Box had money to counter-offer to buy Apple! Think Steve would have sold?
Money isn't everything... Guess, like Steve, they are doing what they love!
/
/
/
Apple never really belonged to Steve. He would not have had any right to say yes or no.
But when you're talking about other people's money, the officers of a corporation have a fiduciary duty to present such offers to the company, via the Board.
Just because Steve may have done what he loved would be no excuse whatsoever for cutting the owners of Apple off from potentially lucrative deals.
In the same manner, if the owners of Dropbox acted as you suggest, and potentially screwed their investors because they wanted to "do what they love", then IMO they belong in jail.
Just my $0.02
$250M in financing is not cash, it's investment. Not the same thing. It goes into the company, not to the stakeholders.
That's not necessarily true.
It's not uncommon practice to use Series B, C, etc. to pay out to series A investors, not to mention founders. Not saying all $250M will be used this way. Not saying even $1 will be used this way. But don't be surprised if some of it is. If so, this would be done with the understanding of the new investors, who then expect to be similarly paid out in the next round. Furthermore, some VCs like this kind of arrangement because they are effectively buying shares from early investors and founders, and thus fewer new shares will be created.
Hopefully, Dropbox is not doing this, or not doing it in a big way.
That's not necessarily true.
It's not uncommon practice to use Series B, C, etc. to pay out to series A investors, not to mention founders. Not saying all $250M will be used this way. Not saying even $1 will be used this way. But don't be surprised if some of it is. If so, this would be done with the understanding of the new investors, who then expect to be similarly paid out in the next round. Furthermore, some VCs like this kind of arrangement because they are effectively buying shares from early investors and founders, and thus fewer new shares will be created.
Hopefully, Dropbox is not doing this, or not doing it in a big way.
Possible, but not at all likely that more than a minority percentage of that $250M goes to the stakeholders. The apple money (however much it was) all would have.
For 9 figures I'd be willing to give up most of my family let alone my company
Even if your company was worth 10 figures?
idiots
icloud just has to be popular enough to steal enough customers to tank the business. and icloud will improve every year.
this year is just the core features for most people. expect apple to add more free features every year
I love how people are calling these two businessmen idiots and stupid.
Just so we're clear, how many $100 million+ offers have y'all gotten the last two years?
If they're idiots- where do I sign up?
I can't believe they refused. How stupid of them.
9 figs.. so 100M at least?
haha.. GL getting a better offer for something that will easily become obsolete.
talk about missing opportunities.
[
what a dumbass! what future does dropbox have now? Probably not a lot.
Apple bought NeXT and all it's talent and IP for $400 Million. Macrumors is reporting they turned down $800 Million for a file sharing app.
Brain dead.
Then there's this:
"Forbes remarks that Dropbox is now up to over 50 million users, and should reach $240 million in 2011 revenue despite 96 percent of its subscribers being on the free plan. The company only has 70 workers, and therefore grosses about three times more per person than Google. Sales should at least double in 2012 even without adding any customers, claims Houston."
Maybe you all should look into the financials more before calling other people stupid. That's assuming you can understand what revenue, sales and profits are.
When Apple ask to buy you out at 9 figures you say YES!!!!!
Why? According to people who know about this valuation stuff, Dropbox is now worth 4 times 10 figures.
Apple's offer was obviously insufficient.
Why? According to people who know about this valuation stuff, Dropbox is now worth 4 times 10 figures.
Apple's offer was obviously insufficient.
The people who make the valuation are the people who are selling the deal. Might there be a bit of perverse incentive?
[
Then there's this:
"Forbes remarks that Dropbox is now up to over 50 million users, and should reach $240 million in 2011 revenue despite 96 percent of its subscribers being on the free plan. The company only has 70 workers, and therefore grosses about three times more per person than Google. Sales should at least double in 2012 even without adding any customers, claims Houston."
Maybe you all should look into the financials more before calling other people stupid. That's assuming you can understand what revenue, sales and profits are.
Well a more precise number would be expected cash flow.
I can't believe they refused. How stupid of them.
I'm quite happy to use both services for free.
I understand what you are saying, but to them it wasn't a missing feature. Photostream holds the last 1000/30days worth of photos then automatically deletes.
It was designed for people to decide what to keep, not delete.
I realize for some that is an issue, because there are pics some people want to delete immediately, photostream just wasn't designed with them in mind.
Honestly, it an incremental feature that will be there soon enough. The ability to share your photostream would also be useful...
I stand corrected! Amazing though, these guys are normally looking for an exit strategy exactly like the Apple offer.
Or maybe better, an exit strategy which involves an offer worth considering?
The people who make the valuation are the people who are selling the deal. Might there be a bit of perverse incentive?
That's fine to take that stance, but they will definitely earn $240mil this year in revenue. 4 billion might be an overstatement, but 1-2 billion isn't far off based on their current revenue (that's 10 figures for those keeping track).
And the fact they still run their business and are responsible for 70 employees/families, might be something they put a high value on. They might be a-holes- who knows, but one thing is for sure- they, just like anyone who makes a business from nothing to a million (or 240 million in this case)- is far from "stupid". They are intuitive and brilliant compared to your normal person.
Off subject- iCloud is genius- I love the calendar and address book a ton, as well as photo stream. Two peeves- cant delete from photo stream, and my yahoo email still wont sync from my iMac/MacBook to my iPhones/iPad. Only .me accounts. I hate that the most (searching for a sent email but it won't show up on my idevice because I sent it from my iMac).
Drop box is brilliant in its own right. I can send anything, to any computer, and SHARE it with any other account anywhere. Wow... I'm glad apple actually didn't get this one.