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Tag: Virtual First

  • Dropbox Will Acquire DocSend

    Dropbox Will Acquire DocSend

    Dropbox has announced it will acquire DocSend, the secure document sharing and analytics service.

    Dropbox has gone all-in on remote work, becoming a “virtual first” company. The company has also taken measures to help other organizations make the shift to remote work, with the release of its Virtual First Toolkit.

    Given its legacy business, and its emphasis on virtual first, the DocSend acquisition makes sense.

    Together, we have the opportunity to amplify DocSend’s capabilities and bring its benefits to even more people and industries. DocSend’s secure sharing and powerful document analytics are a great complement to our expertise in content management at scale. And once combined, Dropbox, DocSend, and HelloSign will offer a full suite of self-serve products to help businesses around the world manage end-to-end critical document workflows and drive meaningful business results. For example, client services teams and creative professionals who already rely on Dropbox to organize and collaborate on messaging docs, presentations, and projects, can use DocSend to deliver proposals and track engagement, and HelloSign to manage contracts and invoices. The combination of Dropbox, DocSend, and HelloSign will help streamline workflows for sales, finance, client service, and executive teams across all industries.

    All of DocSend’s roughly 50 employees will join Dropbox. A closing date was not announced, but is expected to be soon.

  • Dropbox Unloading San Francisco HQ For $1.08 Billion

    Dropbox Unloading San Francisco HQ For $1.08 Billion

    Dropbox is selling its San Francisco headquarters for a near-record $1.08 billion amid the transition to remote work.

    Dropbox has went all-in on remote work, becoming a “virtual-first” company. The company has even taken steps to help other companies make the same transition. The move comes amid a wider transition in the workforce, with many companies embracing a fully remote or hybrid workflow.

    One of the side effects of the transition to remote work is a significant impact on real estate. A recent survey showed some 23% of professionals have left a big city thanks to remote work. The end result has been plunging real estate prices in many cities across the US.

    Dropbox is now selling its Mission Bay headquarters for a whopping $1.08 billion, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The price is the second-highest price for a piece of real estate in San Francisco. It comes in behind the $1.2 billion sale the Embarcadero Center, a property roughly four times the size of Dropbox’s four building complex.

    It’s a safe bet Dropbox’s sale won’t be the last major property sale among tech companies, or the US market at large.

  • Dropbox Cutting 315 Jobs, 11% of Workforce

    Dropbox Cutting 315 Jobs, 11% of Workforce

    Dropbox has announced it is cutting some 315 jobs, or roughly 11% of its global workforce.

    In an 8K filing, Dropbox announced its plans to reduce its global workforce, citing “the next stage of growth “ as a motivating factor.

    In a email to employees, CEO Drew Houston explained the decision:

    Over the past year, we’ve talked a lot about the importance of running a tight ship and getting the company ready for the next stage of growth. This will require relentless focus on initiatives that align tightly with our strategic priorities, and having the discipline to pull back from those that don’t.

    Unfortunately, this means that we’re reducing the size of some of our teams. I realize this is incredibly hard on the Dropboxers and their families who are impacted, and I take full responsibility for this decision. This is one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in my 14 years as CEO.

    To each of you who are affected, I am truly sorry. Please know that this is not a reflection on you. You’ve played an important part in the Dropbox story, and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done for this company.

    Dropbox has been an outspoken proponent of a remote workforce, transitioning to a “virtual first” workflow. The company has even released resources aimed at helping other companies do the same.

    It may seem somewhat strange for a virtual first company, especially one whose products and services are widely used and ideally suited to thriving in a pandemic, to be taking this step. At the same time, Steve Jobs was famously a proponent of knowing when to say “no.”

    It appears that principle is one Drew Houston is endorsing, in his efforts to keep Dropbox focused on its core business.

  • Dropbox Spaces Update Geared At Remote Workers

    Dropbox Spaces Update Geared At Remote Workers

    Dropbox has unveiled an update to Spaces, one aimed at helping remote workers collaborate and remain productive.

    Dropbox Spaces is a service currently in beta that helps small teams work together and stay productive. Dropbox describes the service as “the virtual workspace that brings together teams and projects. Spaces is a new experience from Dropbox, and is designed so small teams can streamline their work, prioritize their day, and stay connected from anywhere.”

    As the pandemic has transformed the workplace, Dropbox has gone all-in on remote work. The company announced it was transitioning to a “virtual first” company, even releasing the Virtual First Toolkit to help other companies do the same.

    Dropbox has introduced Spaces 2, making it even easier for remote teams to work together.

    The new Dropbox Spaces is a virtual workspace that brings teams and projects together. With Spaces, teams have one easy-to-use place where they can collaborate on content, communicate with their team, and coordinate projects from start to finish.

    • Streamline your work. When information is spread across tools and channels, projects are harder to kick off and manage. Spaces makes it easier by bringing together files, cloud content, tasks, comments, and timelines into a single Space for teams.
    • Prioritize your day. Competing priorities make it difficult to work efficiently and finish what needs to get done. With Spaces, you can create tasks for yourself and the team, add project milestones, and manage your schedule so you never miss a deadline.
    • Stay connected to move projects forward. Connecting with people and keeping tabs on work-in-progress is more challenging than ever. With Spaces, you can share project updates, reply to feedback, and feel the human connection of working together from anywhere.

    It’s a safe bet Dropbox will have a big hit on their hands with Spaces, as the company leverages their own “virtual first” experience to help other companies maximize remote productivity.

  • Reddit Embraces Permanent Remote Work, Unifies Employee Pay

    Reddit Embraces Permanent Remote Work, Unifies Employee Pay

    Reddit has become the latest company to make remote work a permanent option, even going so far as to unify employee pay as an added incentive.

    As COVID-19 cases soar and push back many companies’ plans to return to the office, one after another has begun to permanently adopt remote work options. As early as May, Twitter announced it would allow employees to work from home permanently. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that employees will be able to work remotely for less than 50% of their schedule, with permanent remote work available with manager approval.

    Dropbox announced one the most sweeping adoptions of remote work, transitioning to what it termed a “virtual first” company. It even went so far as to open source its Virtual First Toolkit in an effort to help other companies make the transition.

    Now Reddit has announced it is embracing remote work permanently, giving employees the right to choose how they want to work.

    “Moving forward, teams and team members will have flexibility to explore where they work: in the office, remotely, or a combination of the two,” reads the company’s blog. “There are some exceptions; we have some roles at Reddit that need to be performed from our offices or specific geographic locations, such as Facilities or IT Support. Ultimately, we empower our leaders and their teams to make those decisions, balancing the needs of the business and employees.”

    In addition, the company is also doing away with its geographic compensation program. In the past, employees who choose to work remotely were paid less than employees working in the company’s offices. Moving forward, all employees’ pay will be based on the same scale.

    “To help drive the idea home (pun intended), we’ve reimagined our approach to compensation in the US,” the blog continues. “To support employees to live where they want to and do their best work, we are eliminating geographic compensation zones in the US. It means that our US compensation will be tied to pay ranges of high-cost areas such as SF and NY, regardless of where employees live. We believe this is the right balance of flexibility and support for employees, recognizing the varied tradeoffs people consider when deciding where to live. Internationally, we have had one pay range per country, and now the US will be consistent with this approach.”

    For those times when employees want or need to be in the office, the company is reimagining the office workspace, with private focus areas, community collaboration and relaxed, coffee shop-style seating. The company hopes this will help employees stay connected with corporate culture and their fellow workmates.

    It’s safe to say Reddit is taking remote work farther than most, and just catapulted itself to the top of the ‘best place to work’ list.

  • Dropbox CEO: Virtual First Reinvents Work

    Dropbox CEO: Virtual First Reinvents Work

    “We call our approach Virtual First where most focused and solo work happens at home,” says Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. “Then because in-person collaboration is still critical for building teams and relationships and culture we’re turning our offices into collaborative spaces. We call these spaces Dropbox Studios. I feel as a company that we can only live out our mission if we’re on the leading edge of how we work ourselves.”

    “We also hope this Virtual First approach will give us the best of remote and in-person work, balancing flexibility with human connection, and creating a more level playing field for everyone,” notes the Dropbox Team blog. “We’re living through a challenging time. But we believe it brings an opportunity to redesign the way we work for the better.”

    Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, says that starting today, Dropbox is becoming a Virtual First company. Remote work will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work:

    Virtual First Reinvents Work

    I don’t think anyone could have imagined how the entire world went to working from home overnight in the most traumatic and abrupt way possible. We see that the shift to distributed work is going to continue beyond when the lockdown ends. What’s interesting is the vast majority of our employees have said that they don’t want to return to the way things were before. They don’t want to lose the flexibility. They don’t want to go back to commuting. We’ve seen this with a lot of companies.

    We saw this as a unique opportunity to reinvent how we work and rethink this completely. It’s a little different from some of the other approaches. We thought about how do we combine the best elements of the remote and in-person experience. We call our approach Virtual First where most focused and solo work happens at home. Then because in-person collaboration is still critical for building teams and relationships and culture we’re turning our offices into collaborative spaces. We call these spaces Dropbox Studios. This is better than going fully remote or just sort of letting people figure it out for themselves.

    Fully remote cuts out the in-person experience which we think is critical to work. In a lot of the hybrid models which are saying work from home whenever you want to, we think risks the worst of both worlds situation where you don’t get the sense of community in an office and you don’t get the same level of flexibility.

    Shift To Distributed Work Is Massive Opportunity

    It’s a transition. Over time we’re not going to need as much physical space. That’s part of the explicit design here. Sure, there are some efficiencies on costs that result from that or result from being able to hire in lower-cost locations or allowing employees to live in lower-cost locations. But you need to solve for more than just costs. The primary factor for us is that the vast majority of our team wanted to preserve a lot of the benefits they were getting from working from home.

    There are a lot of issues with remote work but most importantly our customers and all the world have shifted to working in a distributed way. We see this as massively increasing our opportunity because there are all of these pain points and ways that we can improve the remote working experience. I feel as a company that we can only do that and we can only live out our mission if we’re on the leading edge of how we work ourselves.

    Dropbox CEO Drew Houston: Virtual First Reinvents Work
  • Dropbox Transitions to ‘Virtual First’ Workflow

    Dropbox Transitions to ‘Virtual First’ Workflow

    Dropbox has become the latest company to embrace a new normal, announcing it has become a “virtual first” company.

    Since the pandemic forced organizations to adopt remote workflows, many companies were surprised to discover how well employees adapted to changing circumstances. As a result, numerous companies have announced plans to make remote work a permanent part of the corporate routine.

    Dropbox is the latest to announce permanent changes as a result of the pandemic:

    Starting today, Dropbox is becoming a Virtual First company. Remote work (outside an office) will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work.

    As part of this strategy, Dropbox is also reevaluating standard workdays:

    Next, we’re embracing what we call “non-linear workdays.” We’re setting core collaboration hours with overlap between time zones, and encouraging employees to design their own schedules beyond that. As our workforce grows more distributed, this will help balance collaboration with needs for individual focus. We want to prioritize impact and results instead of hours worked.

    Dropbox acknowledges there are challenges to a virtual first policy, and is working to address them with the release of Virtual First Toolkit, which it has open-sourced for other companies to make use of.