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by neworbit 4462 days ago
I'm somewhat astounded to hear they have 972 employees. I would have guesstimated somewhere below 200. Even with a huge marketing push, I'm a little at a loss for what they all do.
4 comments

Isn't that insanely many people compared to what they deliver? Many more than DropBox (300+?) and JottaCloud (~10) without me being able to see why.

Edit: You were before me, so added my comment as a reply to you instead.

They have a much higher-touch enterprise sales process, so my guess is that most of the extra employees vs. DropBox are sales, customer service, relationship management, etc. Even after the sell, big clients tend to want dedicated account managers, dedicated support staff they know by name, etc. (Still, it does seem like a lot.)
Based on their revenues, it looks like they need to start charging more if that sort of head count is required.
So is it a service business or a tech platform?
Dropbox is actually > 600 now.

(Source: dropbox.com/about)

Are you fully aware of what they offer? They have all kinds of well-known and arcane certifications, integrations with a few dozen products that are only relevant to large enterprises, a pretty big third-party ecosystem and the API to support them, and the large team required to sell and support these tools.

It's not just file storage for five bucks a month.

None of the numbers I am reading here make any sense to me, but then I'm just a chump who programs computers all day.
Well, it kind-of explains why they have the losses they have.

In business, usually it's possible to achieve whatever revenue you want; the hard part is getting there without a headcount/other expense basis that makes you bleed money instead of earning it.

One word: Sales.
Sales, Marketing, Operations, Technology, Finance, HR. Did I miss any?
My point was that enterprise companies need more sales people than consumer facing companies like DropBox.