
Dropbox Chief to Join Elite Ranks of Idea-to-I.P.O. Founders - cmod
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/technology/dropbox-chief-poster-child-tech-founder-making-it-big.html
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murukesh_s
For anyone who hasn't watched it, checkout the original demo videos made by
Drew himself.

Video1 (Probably earlier version)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAnJjXriIcw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAnJjXriIcw)

Video2 (Better than Video1, more witty and well made.)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE)

It's pretty impressive and the product then looked pretty polished (though
minimalistic as it is even today) that even after 11 years, it hasn't gone
through much changes. One thing that is interesting is that many people use
Dropbox as a poster child of MVPs and Lean methodology, but given the possible
effort and polish that Drew had put into the product, I am not sure we can
call the beta version as an MVP.

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jacobwal
I think it's fair to say that those videos you linked are not examples of MVP
/ Lean, given how sophisticated the product was throughout the demo. The
example that I've always heard (and couldn't find a link to now, so might not
be true) was that, while Dropbox was in YC, they put up a landing page and a
teaser video that only explained what the product would be once released,
without even releasing it. That video generated a lot of buzz and signups,
which was a lean way to validate the idea that people wanted the product.

Seeing as I can't find the video I imagine this story might've been
embellished over the years, so if anyone was here for that I'd love to be
corrected.

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owens99
> I think it's fair to say that those videos you linked are not examples of
> MVP / Lean, given how sophisticated the product was throughout the demo.

The reason it's considered MVP is because the video is faked.

Source: Eric Ries

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murukesh_s
If it's a fake, it's a damn good fake!.

~~~
owens99
True!

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jonbarker
He came to speak at MIT while I was there, and I remember two things that
stuck out. He's a really unassuming guy and smiled at everyone he met in the
hallways(have to kind of enjoy when the market rewards humble people), and he
also fielded the question "where do I find a technical cofounder" to which he
had a great one word answer "codecademy".

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fatjokes
Why is that a great answer?

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zitterbewegung
Because teaching yourself coding and attempting to do it yourself should be
done or at least attempted before hand . A bunch of nontechnical cofounders
think that coding is scary or they can’t learn it . You will burn a bunch of
time attempting to cofounder date than actually get the job done.

There are exceptions such as already getting funding or having background
knowledge or an inspiring vision .

~~~
owens99
The number of exceptions is mathematically very close to 0%

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sjg007
This is great. I remember the initial hacker news post. I remember how I
thought it was trivial and that in the best case Microsoft and google would
eat them. Glad to see that I was wrong. From that perspective I’m trying to
figure out why I thought that despite all evidence to the contrary. And how I
can avoid that type of mistake going forward.

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xbryanx
Does anyone know what kinda of watch he's wearing in that picture?

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nickdandakis
No offense to Drew Houston.

> At M.I.T., he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which he has said
> helped him learn how to build a corporate culture.

> Dropbox also developed a reputation as an unwelcoming workplace for women.
> “Some of the things they’ve been struggling with are how to balance Dropbox
> being a fun place to work with accusations of having a frat boy atmosphere,”
> Mr. Mann said.

Not much of a plot twist there!

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pg_bot
When people talk about things you can't say in tech companies, being in a
greek organization is one of them. I would never advertise the fact that I was
in a fraternity for fear of how people would perceive me. People have a
tendency to blame a group instead of the individual for bad behavior. I don't
need my workplace to be "fun", I'd rather do interesting work with smart
people. I can have fun when I'm not working.

~~~
aphextron
>I would never advertise the fact that I was in a fraternity for fear of how
people would perceive me. People have a tendency to blame a group instead of
the individual for bad behavior.

There's good reason. Fraternities are the exact opposite of meritocracy. Their
very reason for existence, in fact, is to subvert meritocracy through cronyism
and nepotism for those who can afford it. Because of this, people engaged in
strictly meritocratic work (science and engineering) find that whole world
repulsive.

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defen
> Because of this, people engaged in strictly meritocratic work (science and
> engineering) find that whole world repulsive.

Richard Feynman, John Bardeen, Linus Pauling, and Kary Mullis were all in
frats. That's just from 5 minutes of googling famous American scientists I
could think of, I'm sure there's more.

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zawerf
Using Feynman as an example doesn't help your case:
[https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/sexist-
feynman-...](https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/sexist-feynman-
called-a-woman-worse-than-a-whore/)

That said, I don't think we can judge people in the past using modern ethical
values and it doesn't take away from his achievements.

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defen
The argument was "engineers/scientists find fraternities repulsive". Arguing
that a top scientist was a jerk/misogynist/racist/sexist/whatever doesn't
refute that.

