The new Dropbox

Two years ago we announced that I was joining Dropbox - time really does fly! Recognizing that has made me think about how things have come along over the last couple years, and importantly what’s next. One of biggest reasons I joined Dropbox was how much the company’s mission resonated with me. Our CEO, Drew Houston, and I spent a lot of time talking about what was going on in the industry, and how Dropbox could really step-up and, to use our stated mission, design a more enlightened way of working. 

At Dropbox we think a lot about the challenge that people are now recognizing and describing as “fragmentation.” It’s the reality of work today: we have all of these incredible technology tools at our disposal that are designed to make work easier – and in many ways they do – but they’ve also created a new set of issues: content is scattered across different apps, we spend a countless amount of time toggling back and forth between different tools, and coordination with teams now comes with numerous emails, IMs, calls, text messages, and more.

And that’s just in the productivity space. When you step-back and think about it, it’s easy to see that knowledge workers are dealing with four different stacks of software nearly every day. These are: productivity software (think products like Dropbox, Microsoft Office, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, Adobe, etc.), packaged business software (SAP, Salesforce, your HR tools, etc.), bespoke business software (the specialized tools that often IT teams are building), and business analytics tools (Looker, Tableau, etc). 

None of these tools were built to work together seamlessly. But they can be - and changes in the underlying technology landscape are starting to make this possible (cloud computing, low-code/no-code development, machine intelligence, mobile/connectivity, etc). 

At Dropbox, we see an opportunity to change this by first focusing on the productivity space — where so much of so many people’s time is spent. We even think of it as our responsibility as a company to be part of the solution. Drew has spoken about his commitment to tackle this issue instead of shying away from it. The fact that he is willing to lean into this problem is another big reason I came to Dropbox two years ago. It’s an unusual and interesting challenge with a big opportunity: to remove the silos and clutter in the technology tools that have hindered our ability as workers to be creative and curious. To have a hand in helping tackle the burnout epidemic. To make work more delightful. To reinvent work again.

On June 11, 2019, we unveiled the new Dropbox, which is a single, centralized workspace to bring content, tools and teams together with important new integrations with other tools our customers love: Google, Zoom, Slack, and Atlassian. The new Dropbox makes it easier to navigate your workday, allowing you to focus more on the work you care about, and less on the tools you need to get things done. It’s the biggest change to our product in the history of Dropbox and has been a remarkable team effort to complete in just under a year. I couldn’t be prouder of the team. This launch signaled the beginning for Dropbox and for the future of work.

It’s also an interesting milestone for me. I care a lot about this space, and in many ways, this launch parallels the start of my career at Microsoft when I worked on Word: developing products that have an impact on the way people live and work. It’s funny how life can come full circle. I’ll be the first to admit, the new Dropbox isn’t the perfect or final solution - not yet anyway - but I’m confident we’re on the right track in beginning to tackle the fragmentation challenge in a real way. This is just the start and we’re so excited to evolve the product and bring a better future of work to life for our users.