hemancuso

Doesn't look like a unicode trick on the app-strings I'm getting

It's a pretty nasty one, since it uses their standard OAuth flow with an app "Google Docs" to have users grant full access to their email and contacts.

1. I can't believe Google doesn't have basic filters to disallow developers from registering an app named "Google Docs"

2. Perhaps there should be some more validation/limits associated with allowing apps on the platform that can gain full access to email. A secure email account is the One True Source of authentication in the digital world. Google should make it way harder for people to get tricked into granting full access to their inbox.

When exactly did HN transition from from fawning over one of the best YC success stories to being upset with nearly everything Dropbox does?

The number of extremely negative comments here here about using a second process [just like Chrome, Creative Cloud and countless others] to auto-update is really surprising. I can understand people not being thrilled with a kernel extension being installed, but most of those comments there seem misguided or uninformed.

The obvious transition point [to me, it seems] was when they put Condi on the board. HN opinion on nearly everything Dropbox does has really soured since then.

So they hit $400m of revenue in 2016 and have committed to spend at least that much on infrastructure each year for the next 5 years? After all the costs for staffing and everything else they better I hope they achieve amazing growth if they ever intend to profit.

I highly doubt this. Especially given the introduction of the near line tiers.

It's probably just very widely striped, price-segmented data.

Also, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4416065

The notes suggested a lot of the gains were targeting low memory environments so it wasn't immediately clear if it was a win in all dimensions.

Anyone have any perspective as to whether these gains will flow to Electron?

How would you suggest developers actually figure out what tools to use? It is next to impossible to make an informed decision without digesting a good portion of what the OP is talking about. You need to start somewhere.

The trampoline is the MIT degree and incredible engineering talent. If Dropbox failed Drew could've gotten a job within a few days.

How do you manage the syncing of presumably a huge amount of data amongst many groups?

This looks fantastic. I think there is an additional opportunity you might be able to capture by adding functionality for the indie software store. The number of software developers who are paying 8% to fastspring for some pretty basic functionality is incredible. If you're looking for next steps, I'd think about a simple ecommerce storefront for digital licenses.

Grew up in Rochester. Both my father and Grandfather did about 30 years at Kodak at a fairly high level.

How can you transition from the highest margin CPG product of all time to a new regime where there are almost no marginal costs per use? Kodak had well over 100k employees at its peak and was a global brand just like coke. They even saw their demise decades before it occurred.

But what is management supposed to do in a quarterly environment where CEOs are getting ousted other than double down on their success and cut costs? There was never any real money to be made in digital photography and if anyone was going to figure it out, they certainly weren't living in Rochester.

Is the support contract opt in as part of the initial check out?

How long of a tail do you target for SEO? Especially with the blog.

Curious what your average sale price is?

it gets sucked into a database ;)

It's actually in beta now. :)

Thanks!

fair enough. Shoot me an email if you're still interested

jmancuso@expandrive.com if you want to reconnect, sorry if I've missed an email in the past.

If you want to try out a FUSE-style Dropbox filesystem, I write one. It's available on Mac, Windows and soon Linux. [shameless plug]

http://www.expandrive.com

The bit I don't quite understand about Project infinite is that you still have to manually decide what gets sync'd or not. It's also not a network volume, so things like virus scanners or search indexers can just page in-data? And if you want to offload data, you just move it from one folder to another which still eats space.

If you look in the Dropbox install the driver is already being distributed on Mac and Windows. It's a filter driver.

It's a filesystem filter driver

How is your product different than the many many competitors?

I'd be curious to know what percentage of founders are taking money off the table during these rounds. For as many of these articles that I read I don't see much about that. De-risking their personal stake by 3-10M could be a motivating force in these high valuation rounds but I don't see evidence either way. Because on its face these unicorn rounds seem to increase risk rather than reduce it in a few dimensions.

Shameless plug:

ExpanDrive @ http://www.expandrive.com enables a very fast/robust version of this use case.

Some devs are infinitely more productive with an integrated debugger. They use an IDE. I'm one of them when the situation is right (C++).

Most people talk basketball or quarterbacks. Not many people bring up one-dimensional track athletes.

I didn't love the accountant analog. Part of the problem, aside from measurement, is impact. A great athlete can make outsized impact. And while I'm sure a horrible accountant can make an outsized negative impact, it's unclear to me if a great one can make an outsized positive impact. What would that impact even be? Programmers impact can be felt with rev speed, quality, maintainabilty, performance, etc. It's hard to measure how much one person on a team can affect those things but at least they all matter and are felt, even if difficult to measure.

I'd like to know more about elite researchers. Or surgeons. Or oncologists. Or long term value investors. Are there folk in those types of professions who have outcomes who seriously outstrip the top 10% of their peers?

Didn't they deprecate custom stausitem views in 10.10?