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Dropbox CEO Defends 90% Remote-Work Model, Says 'Future of Work' is Here (fortune.com) 103

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from Fortune: What would Drew Houston, CEO of Silicon Valley software giant Dropbox, say to fellow CEOs — like Google's Sundar Pichai or Meta's Mark Zuckerberg — who seem to believe that three days a week in-person is crucial for company culture?

"I'd say, 'your employees have options,'" Houston told Fortune this past week. "They're not resources to control."

While Dropbox used to work near-entirely at its Bay Area headquarters, Houston has completely warmed to a distributed model since the pandemic — and is mystified as to why other leaders haven't joined him. (Houston founded Dropbox in 2007, the year after he graduated from MIT, and has been its CEO ever since.) "From a product design perspective, customers are our employees. We've stitched together this working model based on primary research," he told Fortune at Dropbox's WIP Conference — its first in-person event since 2019 — in New York on Tuesday. "We've just been handed the keys that unlock this whole future of work, which is actually here."

In April 2021, right when most of the country became eligible for vaccines and people began reconvening again across the globe, Dropbox encouraged the opposite. It officially announced its intent to go Virtual First, which meant employees were free to work remotely 90% of the time, only commuting in for the occasional meeting or happy hour... Granted, not everyone got to appreciate the perks. In April, Dropbox laid off 500 employees — 16% of its staff — due to "slowing growth" and "the A.I. era" requiring a reallocation of resources....

Houston and his team have found, in practice, a handful of two- or three-day offsites per quarter — 10% of the year — works best for their people. Crucially, it provides that oft-referenced cultural connect and brainstorming time that pro-office zealots insist upon, without exhausting workers out with a commute grind or needless hours in drab conference rooms.

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Dropbox CEO Defends 90% Remote-Work Model, Says 'Future of Work' is Here

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  • The great thing about remote work is that you can work from India. Eat tandoori chicken and Biryani all day. I'd do it. Applying for an Indian visa as we speak.

    • Enjoy that smell. Oh, and the heat. You will have to go outside eventually.

    • Sorry, no can do. Security is a business where your masters want you to be in the same jurisdiction where they are...

    • Oh, and just in case this was a thinly veiled "ohhh, if your job can be done remotely it can be outsourced to India" threat: It doesn't work. If a job could be outsourced to India, it would have been a long time ago. You think companies wait for WFH to become a thing to cut corners?

  • "I'd say, 'your employees have options,'" Houston told Fortune this past week.

    Sure, but ...

    "They're not resources to control."

    That's exactly what employees are for a business. (Pretty sure they taught you that at MIT.)

    • Re:Um... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday October 15, 2023 @03:53PM (#63927079)

      The problem is everyone's trained to see it as an adversarial relationship where you can't win without making the other party lose. I really don't want to make an extra dollar by treating someone like property. Unfortunately, a business has to compete in the marketplace or cease to exist, and the business that treat people like property have an advantage.

      It's not a universal advantage, though. Plenty of abusive employers fail, and you can be a decent human being and a successful boss at the same time.

      Employees are not a resource, they're people trading their labour for money - and both sides can agree on that as a reasonable thing if they're reasonable people. The labour is the resource, the employee is providing it in return for wages and benefits.

      Nobody has to feel they own someone else, nobody has to be inhuman about bathroom breaks or bereavement leave, nobody needs to be constantly spying on anyone to ensure they're 'getting what they're due'.

      • I really don't want to make an extra dollar by treating someone like property.

        I get that, but "resources" doesn't (necessarily) mean "property".
        A business has to be able to direct (or "control") all it's resources, people being one of them.

        Everyone has a place in an organization.

        For example, I worked for a company as their lead Unix systems admin and systems programmer. Our manager moved up and I applied for his position. It went to someone else. He said he'd prefer that I stay in my current position doing actual work, that I'm very good at, and that I'd hate being in manager

        • Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

          It isn't a stupid question. It lets management know who is happy where they are and who gets flagged for either another role or being a potential problem if there's no room for that change.

          Asked like that it's a little blunt but most managers aren't capable of getting the same information from a casual conversation over lunch.

          One of my developers wanted to be a network engineer. I got him into Cisco classes and made time at work to learn and practice on real systems un

          • It is a stupid question. Because both sides know that the answer you get is a lie. It has to be. Why? Because everyone else lies on this question and if you don't, you're already falling behind.

            If you answer truthfully, one of many things can happen. Either your boss feels threatened because you pretty much say "In your seat", so he wants to get rid of the competition before it becomes a threat. Or your boss sees you as someone trying to use the company to get qualified and jump ship at the first opportunit

            • I'm sorry your managers sucked. Your experience is not everyone's.

              Perhaps if you tried to treat your boss like a human being instead of the enemy and got to know each other as people, you'd be happier and more successful at work.

              I always preferred to hire people who had dreams and goals. They are more driven to succeed and put in the extra effort and therefore make me look better as their manager.

              Get better managers. If you tell them you want to advance and they don't immediately show interest in getting

              • I finally, now after about 30 years in the business, have a boss that I'd call a keeper. Not gonna give him back. That's not the point here.

                I don't have professional goals. I don't need them. I'm getting paid for doing what I love doing. Why would I want to change that? And that's also who I want to hire. I don't want to hire someone who sees the job I offer as just yet another stepping stone on the way somewhere else. I want to hire someone to do a job, and I would prefer it if he did that job because he w

                • That's great for you who has no goals. But you're giving terrible advice to anyone who does.

                  Your hiring standards work for you? Cool. Seriously. But I found the people with goals, dreams, passion to learn new things are the ones who came up with the brilliant work while the others just did their jobs by rote and went home. That was ok , there is always grunt work to be done 9-6, but I couldn't have been successful with an entire team of those. I was hired to take over a team like that once. It was dr

                  • It depends on what level you're hiring. Like I said, if you're hiring someone to take care of grunt work, it's probably a good idea to be looking for someone who wants to move on eventually. This isn't exactly what I'm looking for here. I'm looking for very specialized seniors in their particular field. It's a very complicated and extremely expensive process to onboard them, partly because of the specialized field, partly because of the security process involved. They cost a fortune, it takes a few months t

                    • Ok, I understand your situation and your attitude about hiring makes sense in that context, but your advice to others who want to have a career path in the usual situation is still terrible.

                      I've _always_ looked for career path people to hire. I have only one time lost someone because I didn't have that role for him; the guy who wanted to be super ISP network engineer but we built software and had a pretty basic network.

                      People are going to do what they're going to do so it is better for the employee not to

                    • I can only hand you that back, because while that may apply to you, a lot of (bad) managers feel intimidated by people who have a career in mind because they (rightfully) think that the go-getter will kick them to the curb on his way up.

                      Then again... who wants to work for a shitty manager... ok, ok, I see your point. Either you get the job because a good manager wants a hungry go-getter or you don't get the job because a bad manager doesn't want competition. Either way, you win.

                    • > Either you get the job because a good manager wants a hungry go-getter or you don't get the job because a bad manager doesn't want competition. Either way, you win.

                      Yes! Exactly! It is a critical filter in both directions. The employee has to want to work for the manager, too. It isn't a one way street.

                      Was great having a nice chat with you on this.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Every time I applied for a role that moved my career forward in the direction I wanted it to go I was told I was too good at what I did for the promotion. Every time I left and got a new job elsewhere. I'm not working at company X for company X. I'm working there for my career growth.

      • Nobody trains to feel like in a "them vs. me" situation. That's simply company culture in many companies. And you correctly identified the reason.

        That only worked so far, though, because there has always been a surplus of potential employees for the amount of positions available. This is changing as we speak. So that antagonistic atmosphere will have to change, because otherwise you'll be stuck with hiring the dregs that no company that treats their workers like people would want.

        And that in turn will mean

      • sooooooo. yeah, nope. I have 64 years on this earth so far and the number of bosses I have had that don't act like "You Can Be Replaced in a Heartbeat by someone half your cost!" i can count on the toes of one hand. Here in the USA it appears to me as if Management sets the game up as adversarial... Profit is the difference between costs and income, your payroll is a cost, thus, to maximize profit (take a Business Ethics class and you will learn that this is REQUIRED) you minimize costs, i.e. you minimize p
        • by jbengt ( 874751 )

          I have 64 years on this earth so far and the number of bosses I have had that don't act like "You Can Be Replaced in a Heartbeat by someone half your cost!" i can count on the toes of one hand.

          To match your anecdote with mine, I've had a few more years on this earth than that and I've never had a boss that acted like that.

      • Does this mean the Dropbox does not as actively discriminate by age and family status the way that Meta and Google do?

    • by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

      Employees are your resources to control as long as they choose to remain employees.

      Right there that obviates the control employers have over employees. The employee can always choose to work elsewhere. They are only resources as long as the *employee* agrees.

      So, you agreed with the first statement, and have been proven wrong in your second statement. Sure MIT can teach that your people are your resources (i.e. that is how you get things done), but at the same time they are sadly mistaken, as many compani

    • Not necessarily. Some don't call them resources to control but rather assets to use sensibly.

  • Some employees are going to be non-productive. Dragging them into offices is not going to help much.

    At my work, almost everybody works remotely. I come in because I live 3 minutes away and I like having the whole place to myself. For our small team remote work is alright. It works. With the exception of a couple of team members who are in different time zones. If an entire team is in the same time zone, you can bounce ideas back and forth all day long. This is not possible with people who are sleepin

    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Unless they're on the opposite side of the planet, there is usually at least some overlap in hours.
      Also depending on the nature of the work, some people prefer to work at night and do other things during the day.

    • Talk for yourself, the best job I ever had was a remote job for a US company in Cali with me sitting in central Europe (i.e. 9 hours difference).

      Was the first and only time that I was ever the first one in the office, because even I could manage to be up and running at 4pm (7am PST).

      Yes, it meant I saw very little sunlight during the Winter but then again, I don't mind the lack of sun glare on the screens too much.

  • Money vs Power (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sudonim2 ( 2073156 ) on Sunday October 15, 2023 @03:53PM (#63927081)

    Remote work makes social and business sense. It allows employees better social life. It reduces a business' environmental footprint. It reduces real estate costs. It increases productivity. It reduces management requirements. It allows disabled workers to access the company and allows the company to access geographically remote populations. It just makes sense.

    What it doesn't do is allow for a large fiefdom of people obligated to be under the watchful eye of an executive so they can feel important. That might only be attractive to poorly socialized and emotionally stunted man-childs, but unfortunately such people make up a not-insignificant percentage of executives.

    • Re:Money vs Power (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nevermindme ( 912672 ) on Sunday October 15, 2023 @03:57PM (#63927089)
      Why the environmental footprint is not out front with the people that the environmental footprint is always out in front with is telling. The united states is reducing its carbon footprint per the worlds request, and this is the most supportive item, because there is no need to travel to a cube farm, to have team meetings floor to floor. The petrochemicals can be used for things that are constructive in lue of the way it has been.
      • Not just that! Large office blocks that are both air conditioned and heated while only being occupied for 1/3rd of the day are huge environmental burdens. All the space and asphalt used in their parking lots are an urban blight. The infrastructure, mainly highways, to handle huge influxes of people only twice a day are horrible in many different ways.

    • Re:Money vs Power (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Sunday October 15, 2023 @03:59PM (#63927091)

      Established businesses will have institutional inertia and mostly try to return to what they know. Every time something goes poorly, they're going to blame the problem on the most visible suspect - WFH.

      New businesses that lack physical infrastructure and may not have the capital to acquire it will have a competitive advantage and, if WFH really is that great an idea, will eventually dominate the market. It'll take time, but it's one of those cases where the invisible hand of the market will take care of it.

      • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        The irony is that, in many cases, the companies pushing for a return to WFH are massive international corporations with offices everywhere.

        Google, Facebook, Amazon/AWS, Microsoft, IBM, Apple - on down to even smaller companies like Dropbox with over a dozen+ offices - have teams spread out through the entire world. I, personally, interface primarily with three teams spread throughout the US - Texas, California, and Connecticut. My team, unlike most of the company, is "fully remote" - while some regularly go

        • Most of the companies pushing hard for RTO are the ones that own their offices and don't want to realize massive losses due to their real estate values plummeting into nothingness. Do you want to be the CEO who gets to realize a multi-billion dollar loss and risk your bonus?

          Of course not.

          So you want to force your workers back into the office, even if that costs you half your staff. By the time it becomes a problem that you lost the 50% of your workers that actually worked in the company, because they could

      • Single-payer healthcare is the most cost effective way of dealing with healthcare. Giving homeless people home is the cheapest and most effective way to deal with homelessness. Needle exchanges are the best way to prevent HIV and Hepatitis. None of those are in place.

        The invisible hand of the market is a fallacy. The "market" isn't really a thing; it's just an abstraction. To the extent that it is a real thing, it's only a real thing as a social structure. Like everything else, it is a human system fundame

        • I never said the market would solve all. I'm Canadian, we have single-payer healthcare and needle exchanges.

          But the market will generally solve the issue of weeding out stupidly inefficient companies unless a monopoly exists. The guy with the lowest overhead has the greatest profits, after all.

          • by j-beda ( 85386 )

            The guy with the lowest overhead has the greatest profits, after all.

            Yeah, but until the other guy goes out of business, they could continue to do that inefficient thing that they are doing. Ideally, the competition makes everyone drop their prices until the inefficient ones are gone, but that often does not happen. Inefficiencies can stick around for a VERY long time. If "the guy" wants to just continue to make those "greatest profits", they don't HAVE to drop their prices, and if they have as many customers as they can serve, they have no incentive to drop prices.

    • this is about commercial real estate values. It's important to realize that so you understand just how little you mean to them. They do not at any time think of you as a person. You are a system of inputs and outputs on a spreadsheet.
      • by Njovich ( 553857 )

        True, but it's not about watching if you do your job to their satisfaction. It's about control. It's about you sitting down on your little desk like a slave so he can watch you do it and feel like the boss. Wish I was joking.

        Having said that there is 100% a lobby going on towards CEO's and other leadership to make 'their workers get back to work' - I would bet CRE interests are a big driver there. For many large investors, the amount of money tied up in massive office buildings is staggering. Losing value o

      • That's fine. To us, CEOs are just overpriced, glorified magic-8-balls.

    • by tokul ( 682258 )

      > It increases productivity.
      Only surveys where quiet quitters know how to answer survey questions to continue staying at home.

      • No, indeed it increases productivity. Especially if you are working for a company where self-absorbed narcissists call all-hands meetings every couple days, wasting 1-2 hours of 200+ people to drone on about how awesome they are. Before WFH, you had to sit there in person and waste 2 hours on mentally undressing the intern.

        Now you can let the drone drone on and actually get work accomplished. And since you can put the burden of these two hours onto the drone's cost center, it even means that your projects a

      • WFH has been shown to increase productivity not just in surveys but in studies of work product directly.

  • You start somewhere at a new company. First month, you have to be there five days a week, so you can adapt and learn and meet everyone sooner or later. Second month, you can work from home one day a week. Third month, you can work from home two days a week. And so on, sixth month you can work 5 days a week from home if you want to and still pull your weight. This way you get to meet all your coworkers, the company can judge what happens and if you just slack as soon as you're not there they'll notice that

    • You might want to mention why the hell I'd have to, or even want to, meet every coworker in person. What's the benefit of that?

    • Sounds fair - except if your cow-orkers have been there longer than six months, you might never see them in the office, so all that time spent there is possibly wasted (or at least, less beneficial than first thought).

      Pretty much every office-based job I've had was with a bunch of techies, mostly wearing headphones chatting over slack. For my use-case, we may as well do that from home. Hell, one place I worked had a 'code of conduct' that had to include clauses such as "please don't clip your toenails at yo

    • Nah. I'll still just find the 100% remote work jobs from day 1 thanks. Oh, and I'm always productive with a great work ethic.
  • by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Sunday October 15, 2023 @05:16PM (#63927201)
    It will be interesting to see how agreements on who owns products developed by remote working staff. I have friends who work 2 full time jobs by splitting time between them; I wonder what happens when one discovers they developed a product sold by a competitor and claim ownership under an employment agreement.
    • That's why most employment agreements for FTE say you won't work for anyone else and anything you produce in their field while working for them is theirs.

      What happens usually is lawsuits are filed, the person is fired, the other company decides not to use whatever it is and have someone else black box it and only the lawyers win.

      • That's why most employment agreements for FTE say you won't work for anyone else and anything you produce in their field while working for them is theirs.

        What happens usually is lawsuits are filed, the person is fired, the other company decides not to use whatever it is and have someone else black box it and only the lawyers win.

        Yup, and they'd clearly be in breach of their employment agreement. I guess it would also depend on how valuable the product was to determine if it was worth fighting over.

        • You'd be in breach and fired if you had a second job, but there's an out on the work product. When you get hired you can give them an exclusions list of things outside their field or previous inventions you're claiming. But under normal circumstances the employee is pretty hosed. Even if work product isn't an issue you're probably still going to get fired.

          I had a buddy with 2 FTE jobs a few blocks away from each other. He was trying to go back n forth between them every day. He got away with it for abo

    • That's why any remotely sane company has non-compete agreements in place where you're not allowed to take any employment in a company in the same field at the same time.

      This has nothing to do with WFH. What's in my head is in my head and can be written here or there.

      • That's why any remotely sane company has non-compete agreements in place where you're not allowed to take any employment in a company in the same field at the same time.

        This has nothing to do with WFH. What's in my head is in my head and can be written here or there.

        My point was with WFH people can work two jobs, non-competes and other agreements not withstanding much more easily. I know people who do that. My point was it can create an interesting legal situation with regards to ownership of what was developed. Also, if WFH has no set hours, when are you on vs off the clock? In teh end, laws will have to catch up with WFH.

        • The legal situation of something far different is already a much more interesting issue, because you cannot work two jobs simultaneously. If they work two jobs consecutively, that's no problem, but if they bill two companies for the same hour, that's fraud.

          And whether I'm on the clock or off the clock is easy to tell: When I clock in, I'm on the clock. When I don't, I'm not.

  • My guess is that he has to defend himself against other big corps that want to kill wfh. Dropbox will attract better talent since every day you wfh is a measurable savings on commute time as well as the associated costs. (food, gas, wear and tear on vehicle, etc....)
    • Not only that, it's also way easier to detect slackers.

      Social slackers have a problem with WFH scenarios. They can't just butter up their manager, pretend and look busy, because all management will see at the end of the day is raw output.

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Indeed, they just make one of those "move the mouse for me" software packages coupled with a picture of themselves attached to a pendulum so they get perfect "raw output" in countless jobs where "raw output" is only measurable from... other people interacting with them.

        • I'm talking about engineers here, not managers.

          • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Your position allowed you to isolate yourself from reality for last twenty years. Managers make for a tiny minority, which nontheless is much larger than engineers. Most people who work remote work are neither engineers nor managers. And for overwhelming majority of remote workers, it's effectively impossible to measure performance even when they are in the office. It's easier to get to something that approximates a half decent measure of performance in the office, but it's still hard.

            And when they're not i

            • You might want to point out better what this has to do with whether people sit in an office or at home. If I can't measure productivity either way, what can I measure? That they sit in a chair and stare at a screen with an excel sheet open instead of some video? What exactly do you want to say?

              Whether someone is unproductive while staring at the wall or standing next to a water cooler or whether he is unproductive while staring at a video doesn't change much for my bottom line, does it?

              • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                I suspect that you have very few interactions with humans on a general level if this is a question you're asking. Anyone who had to lead a group of people toward a common goal, be it being a team leader at work, a coach of a sports team or a captain of a ship, they understand the problem I'm describing intuitively. Because they had a run at the wall of "people working toward common goal" actually works on same fundamental principles as a group of ants. Everyone looks like they're working together, but in re

                • If you expect people to do anything for you other than what you pay them for, you're quite delusional. If you think that changes when they are in your physical presence, you're even more so.

                  I don't exist on an interpersonal level. I exist on a professional level. At least in a professional context. I may exist on a personal level on my own time. And sorry, no, that's not for sale or rent.

                  I can only repeat my question: What does any of this have to do with where someone puts their physical body?

                  • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                    >If you expect people to do anything for you other than what you pay them for, you're quite delusional.

                    The interesting part is that one of the things I do on the side is grassroots sports. And one of the big things I have to handle is workplace tournaments. There is an incredible amount of people at every workplace who happily do things for other people at their workplace to organize a workplace team that could participate.

                    So if you think people don't do things for each other all the time, you're either

                    • I do things for people for free. What this would have to do with my workplace is beyond me, though. If I like someone and if what they need is within my capabilities and I have the necessary resources available, I see no reason to not provide it for them.

                      But how does the workplace enter that equation? Why does it matter whether these people work at the same company I do?

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      My guess would be that they are normal people with human empathy, who like their relations with people with whom they spend about eight waking hours five days a week to be friendly, and find relatively small time and effort investment into such environment to be an acceptable price to pay.

                      Not everyone values other people, especially colleagues as high. But most people do prefer a friendly work environment to a hostile or generally disinterested one in my experience. Two exceptions are minority antisocial pe

                    • I generally have a pretty good cooperation level with my coworkers and there are certain aspects that I enjoy, but generally the primary objective of cooperating with them is to get shit done. If that is enjoyable, I consider it an added bonus.

                    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                      That's great for you that you found a good work-interpersonal communication balance. I mean it, I've seen a lot of work collectives where environment is very bad and everyone is constantly watching each other. I've also seen ones where most people genuinely like each other and will go out to have a drink and socialize after work is done. Yours sounds like it's somewhere in the middle.

                      But when talking in generalities, it takes time and effort to make workplace not the former. Because backstabbing office poli

  • The cultures I have encountered in companies should best be kept in a Petri dish in a high-sec lab.

    At the least they will make you puke, at worst they're more toxic than smallpox.

  • ... for the large majority of those playing the game.

    Productivity, team integration, innovation, communication all decline when the team is remote....

    Some team members, especially those who can afford dedicated space and have the necessary discipline, do show marked improvement when working remote but outliers do not a pattern make.

    The bulk of the WFH whiners are those who love the idea of skiving off and earning whilst doing so. Given that policies can't be crafted around these lazy chuckledinks, everyo

    • Found the useless middle manager who noticed that they're onto him being a fucking useless cunt when he can't micromanage and keep people from getting work done.

      • Found the useless middle manager who noticed that they're onto him being a fucking useless cunt when he can't micromanage and keep people from getting work done.

        Triggered much? Maybe be more productive and you wont feel so small, useless and inconsequential?

        Also, get your non-perfmorming ass to the office so we can waste valuable time doing the job your parents failed to do

        • Yes, triggered much. Just because you would slack off all day when not under the constant scrutiny of a whip-wielding asshole doesn't mean everyone else is. Personally, I work far better without someone standing behind me and distracting me from the job at hand.

          Take your office and stick it. Want to fire me? Fire me. You think someone with 20 years of experience and a skill set that is not wanted but hunted in this economy will care? Fire me! C'mon, I dare you. You think you'd be the first useless manager w

          • Fire me. You think someone with 20 years of experience and a skill set that is not wanted but hunted in this economy will care?

            You don't adult very well, do you? Nobody is irreplaceable. Nobody. If you're this unhappy with your lot in life, suck it up or quit.

            • Why? They pay me, I work for them. If either side is no longer happy with this contract, we will dissolve it and I will work somewhere else.

              I frankly have no idea why people stress so much over work. It's just work for crying out loud, it's not your life.

  • "They're not resources to control."

    It's literally called "human resources". As in that is what deparment responsible for managing employees is called.

  • Let the people that are productive working at home continue to have that option and make the people that aren't productive working from home come in to the office. Maybe have everyone come in 1 or 2 days a week?
    • Let the people that are productive working at home [..]?

      Labour law in many places does not allow for this. It's considered discrmination.

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