As the #1 file sharing company in the world, Dropbox faces a mammoth challenge: future growth. While continuing to add free storage space for current and new users, employees have to constantly answer the question of how to keep Dropbox relevant (and therefore profitable). To do this, the company has begun purchasing smaller startups to expand the range of applications the site can be used for. This includes the photo storage cloud Snapjoy, which allows users to view all photos from desktops, laptops, and mobile devices in one location. Moves like this characterize Dropbox’s refusal to stagnate, proving that in a time when companies must constantly evolve or die, its workforce is meeting the challenge of twenty-first century business.
As with any online company in the new millennium, Dropbox has at times been the center of controversy. Concerns have been expressed in recent years over privacy issues, most recently with The Guardian and The Washington Post reporting the government’s consideration of incorporating Dropbox into its PRISM surveillance program. That said, Dong assures reporters that employees, while working to protect users’ private files, are not able or allowed to access them. This, along with the various rules, employee monitoring, and fail safe systems stands to protect what makes Dropbox as successful as it is–the people that use it.
Overall, if there’s one thing to be gleamed from our discussion with Deanna, it is that Dropbox is the archetype of the classic success story: one person, with no more than a simple idea, changes the way the world thinks. As a modern interpretation of this concept, Dropbox has filled a supply and demand that users weren’t even aware existed before its creation. And as long as its employees retain the company’s youthful determination, Dropbox’s influence and power (like its storage capacity) can only continue to grow.