Dropbox hires a COO: Dennis Woodside, former Motorola Mobility CEO | Hacker News Reader

Dropbox hires a COO: Dennis Woodside, former Motorola Mobility CEO

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68 pointscsmajorfive18 comments

> Dropbox raised $350 million in a financing round that valued the six-year-old startup at $10 billion.

This is interesting. DB still rely on funding instead of revenue? I am sure they are working hard on enterprise-level plan. Were DB the one asking for the funding or someone proposed to DB to take the $$.

The other thing is that he's going from a CEO to a COO. From a business outsider, I see this as a downgrade.

he was CEO of a division of Google worth $3B to COO at a $10B company. Seems natural to me

it's the equivalent of a Sheryl-Zuck type of relation. He'll lead all business and Drew will lead product. Dropbox is basically ran by ex-Googlers now: Marc Leibowitz, Ramsey H., Woodside, etc.

Title can be misleading. He went from a low growth division with existing processes to a high growth firm he can help build.

It's kind of like saying a director of internal IT with 50 direct reports is taking a demotion to be the first engineering manager at a 10 person startup. Different environment.

Dropbox is clearly growing faster than their revenue cashflow can support, so it's quite reasonable for them to continue to raise money. It's obvious to everyone in the industry that Dropbox intends to IPO sometime in the next couple years. Hiring this COO allows Drew to focus on 1) hiring 2) IPO issues. Neither Drew nor Arash has IPO experience, and while it's easy enough to get advisors (and hire a great CFO), it still seems to be the case that these companies bring in a couple more IPO-experienced execs before.

They were pretty under-resourced on CFO until 2011 at least -- I don't know who they have now. I'd watch their CFO hiring for the most impending signs of an IPO. Look what happened at Facebook -- hiring David Ebersman.

IMO, CEO of Motorola Mobility to even a Director at Dropbox, Apple, etc. would be an upgrade.

Okay. Fair point. I am probably still thinking of the old Motorola Inc which has been divided into two organizations.

The guy who oversaw the making of the best Android phone for the average person, which could have challenged the iPhone, but apparently failed to realize that it's more important to make it affordable and available internationally than to make it in America and have customizable back covers. His plan was flawed, but well executed, so I guess it makes sense that he's going to be a COO since the COO role is all about execution.

The main sellable product of a modern very successful startup is public stock. They will soon fulfill this objective. The money that makes the insiders rich comes from the shareholders, not from the revenues. This is the unfortunate reality of America in 2010s. On a sidenote, it is my prediction that the Quantitative Easing is permanent.

What would the responsibilities of a COO be? What makes a good COO? Do we know any famous COOs ?

A COO is in charge of daily operations of the company and reports to the CEO. A famous COO would be Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook.

Daily operations as in "make sure the site is not down and make sure everybody in the office is doing something productive" ?

the COO varies based of the need of the CEO and their working relationship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_operating_officer

This talk/interview of Keith Rabois is great when it comes to talking about what a COO does: http://firstround.com/article/Keith-Rabois-on-the-role-of-a-...

Tim Cook was COO of Apple before taking over as CEO. Steve Jobs may have help bring the iPod, iPhone and iPad to the world. But someone else had to figure out how to get those millions of devices into hands of customers.

A COO is great in a large company, where the CEO can be more hands-off and have a more representative role. In startups or small companies it's frankly a waste and just leads to very conflicting sets of responsibilities and infighting. Been experiencing this myself.

As a COO or as a CEO?

He's a really smart manager. Perfect for a COO role, though I'm surprised he didn't try to jump in higher. I guess he's trying to do the Sheryl Sandberg model of far-reaching COO under a charismatic but less experienced CEO.

How long was he actually at Motorola? It seems like he was just there to help Google flip it.

Poor guy, couldn't get a job at Apple or Intel [0]. Got lucky Dropbox hired him.

[0] http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valley...

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