Comment by BrandonM
8 years ago
It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"!
I like to think that I've gained a lot of perspective over the last 11 years; it's pretty clear to me that point #1 was short-sighted and exhibited a lot of tunnel vision. Looking back, though, I still think that thread was a reasonable exchange. My 2nd and 3rd points were fair, and I conceded much of point 1 to you after your reply (which was very high quality).
Obviously, we have the benefit of hindsight now in seeing how well you were able to execute. Kudos on that!
Congrats on your success! I wish you nothing but the best going forward!
Well put.
Also, one thing I think people ignore is that BrandonM's comment was notable because it was voted to the top.
Which means that the people reading and voting on the thread, at the time, thought it was the best reply. But no one will ever point a finger at them, because they're anonymous. They also have less chance for self-reflection - who remembers an upvote?
I also think people might overlook BrandonM's follow-up reply to dhouston's reply on April 6th - "All of your feedback was well-thought-out and appreciated; I only hope that I was able to give you a sneak preview of some of the potential criticisms you may receive. Best of luck to you!"
Yup. It's really only the first part of the comment which had tunnel vision.
(Which does of course raise the question: were people upvoting for that part, or despite it? We'll never know)
I think the biggest issue with people is a lack of introspection, and this example shows the issue here. Most interactions are too meaningless and therefore difficult to self improve on.
I don't know what's the best system to make people reconsider their actions, however. After all, giving a single upvote and walking away is incredibly easy. Coming back to recognize your mistakes is hard.
I think people are always looking for a take on a new product that can be shown with 20-20 hindsight to be proven wrong...
" No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." for the original iPod, springs to mind.
I hereby point a finger at the people who silently upvoted that comment
I think your feelings were shared by hundreds of professional investors that passed them up so dont be too hard on your 22yo self at the time. :)
I see you getting some flak here but for what it's worth, I read it as a very grounded discussion and feedback. I appreciate the fact that you conceded the points that seemed reasonable post Drew's comment.
To be honest I like seeing some posts like that where the entire concept of the idea is being challenged from the ground up, especially if the creator has to step in and defend it. Oftentimes I get more perspective into a product from the defense of its perceived shortcomings than I do from any marketing material.
3rd point (viral): The dropbox solution was great, of users getting more dropbox when they brought in another user. By rewarding with more dropbox (instead of money), only people who genuinely value dropbox would spread it. These aligned interests can't be gamed.
I thought dropbox was a great idea from the very beginning... but I've been repeatedly amazed at the scale of the opportunity. People working cross-mobile/desktop must be a big part of it.
> but I've been repeatedly amazed at the scale of the opportunity. People working cross-mobile/desktop must be a big part of it.
Or just multiple computers. Also don't forget file sharing and collaboration.
I'm a long-time Dropbox user, and my first use cases were, in order:
- shared folders with friends at university, when we were working on projects together
- shared folder for myself between personal computer and a station at work
Nowadays I use it mostly as a way to sync up my time/task tracking (in Emacs/org-mode) between multiple machines and mobile devices.
OTOH, my SO regularly uses Dropbox at work to exchange bundles of 200+MB files with other companies, and it's telling - there really is no better, safer solution for a regular user to send someone larger files when they no longer fit in an e-mail.
Your comment was one of a handful that lead to me registering for an account on HN instead of just lurking, I love that this got closure in my mind. Thank you for responding to this
That bit about closure made me smile. You're welcome :). I owe a huge thank you to the HN member who emailed me to let me know about this discussion.
I think your initial comment, your reply - and now this all say the same thing.
You seem like a great person & I wish you well with your own projects.
That's very kind, thanks!
This may be the most civil discussion I've ever seen on the web. Spread out over 11 years! Amazing. I love HN.
Your original HN comment perfectly captures the quintessential HN user at the time. I feel like every “Show HN” thread has those types of responses of like trivially explaining away all the hard work with just a few “simple” hacks.
I think the typical HN user has morphed a bit at this point(re: crypto) but it’s great to be able to reference the totally aloof engineer that existed at that time.
I came to Hacker News through Paul Graham's essays. I learned about Paul Graham because we used ANSI Common Lisp in an elective Common Lisp class. His essays were specifically suggesting that many college-aged techies would benefit from starting a startup instead of going into the traditional workplace.
I bet that describes a lot of the early HN (originally: Startup News) users. I don't think it was really "totally aloof engineers", but instead young geeks without much perspective on the world. Most of us weren't even engineers at that point, by any reasonable definition of the term.
It seems funny now looking at retrospective that neither Drew or Brandon said anything about syncing on Mobile. Congrats Dropbox!
Mobile was barely a thing then. Amazing the decade of progress in personal electronics.
I just looked it up -- The first iPhone was officially released 3 days after Dropbox received their YC check (June 29th, 2007 vs. June 26th). Astounding.
Drew and Brandon, together again!
Feels like the “I’m a Mac, I’m a pc” ad.
What do you do now Brandon ? edit: nvm, found this https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=BrandonM
I also spent about 2 years working remotely and traveling with my wife, living in different places in Europe, Asia, and the US for anywhere from a few days to a few months. We have a travel blog and twitter account (all thanks to my wife) that I'm happy to share via email with anyone who's interested.
I'd love to follow along - my beautiful wife and I are planning to hit the road as remote workers, so always keen to learn from others who have done it as couples / families.
The pic of "the dropbox critic":
http://banda.mintern.net/ceremony.html
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mintern/
Funny to see how many "analysts" laugh at Brandon without even realising that their "analysis" use to be very flawed.
I think you were still very right in your intentions. I despise Dropbox, personally, and wish it would die. This is what Operating Systems are for.
However, the fact it has not died and is in fact 'a success' from the capitalist side of things, means what I think about filesharing being an OS service, doesn't really matter. Microsoft and Apple and all the other vendors are asleep at the wheel - but it has to be said that its just a distro upgrade away from being the end of Dropbox for a lot of people.