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Commenters To Dropbox CEO: Houston, We Have a Problem
theodp (442580) writes "On Friday, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston sought to quell the uproar over the appointment of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the company's board of directors, promising in a blog post that Rice's appointment won't change its stance on privacy. More interesting than Houston's brief blog post on the method-behind-its-Condi-madness (which Dave Winer perhaps better explained a day earlier) is the firestorm in the ever-growing hundreds of comments that follow. So will Dropbox be swayed by the anti-Condi crowd ("If you do not eliminate Rice from your board you lose my business") or stand its ground, heartened by pro-Condi comments ("Good on ya, DB. You have my continued business and even greater admiration")? One imagines that Bush White House experience has left Condi pretty thick-skinned, and IPO riches are presumably on the horizon, but is falling on her "resignation sword" — a la Brendan Eich — out of the question for Condi?"
Now George is a painter, Condi is on the board, Dick -- well, Dick is still a dick. So, are we supposed to forget or what? And forgive? Hard to do when we're still payin' the bills.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
If you can't spell "you're", you're an idiot. An illiterate idiot....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Same intolerant crap.
There are some things that shouldn't be tolerated. War mongering is one of them. Thousands of American families lost a son, brother, or husband in a pointless counter-productive war because of this woman's lies and incompetence. The number of Iraqi families affected is a hundred times higher.
Dropbox has the right to have her on their board. I have the right to speak my mind, and take my business elsewhere.
The real question is, "what does she bring to the table" as a member of the Board? Does her tenure as a faculty member in the Stanford School of Business matter? What about her time as the director of the Stanford Global Center for Business and the Economy?
What i dont like is late comers to companies that get IPO, and then these get millions, ahead of the hardworking coders who started there from day 0.
I dont mind her there, but if the company IPOs for billions, she should not get a cent, as I cannot see anything she can contribute that would add to the book value or earnings values. /*
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This goes beyond that.
Rice directly contributed to the waste of O($1 trillion) of taxpayer money, the loss of thousands of lives, and the torture of prisoners. That should make her persona non grata to any organization that gives a damn about not wasting public money for political gain, not murdering people, and not engaging in state violation of human rights. This isn't "gave some money to a dishonest and illiberal election campaign" (Eich). This is "shit on American values and wiped with the Constitution for good measure".
That's on top of the security/espionage concerns.
If Condi Rice were the checkout clerk at Safeway I'd refuse to do business with them.
She should be tried in the Hague tribunal for war crimes instead.
Hiring a war criminal and domestic-spying person may not change Dropbox's stance on privacy, but it shows another darker side of DB, it's business-at-the-expense-of-morality side.
Did they really think, "She approved the mass snooping of private data saved online, which certainly included targeting our infrastructure to breach our customers' privacy. Oh, we won't worry about that, we need her expertise, we'll hire her!".
Then again, writing the above paragraph, what the fuck was their stance on privacy then, if hiring her didn't make them ask themselves whether they're doing the right thing?
And how exactly will Dropbox succeed in the international scene, when all the foreign companies fucking realize that they're basically in-bed with the Washington "Elite", the same people that created and supported PRISM?!?
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Try SpiderOak. Free 2 GB, zero-knowledge, secure. Works on a load of OSs and devices. I'm a completely satisfied customer.
Or ... get a free dynamic DNS hostname (there are still plenty available) and take a few minutes to learn about SSH/SFTP (and SSHGuard if you are using passwords) and set up your own personal file server. It doesn't have to allow shell access.
Now the companies can do whatever they want because you did the little bit of learning it took not to care.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
In other news, Dropbox has announced that their appointment of Joseph Goebbels to their board of directors will not change their stance on Jews.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well ganjadude. May I call you ganjadude? I imagine that is what your friends on 'your side' call you, right? 'ganjadude' sounds like that kind of a name.
You're assuming that the people who are angry about the appointment of Rice to this role are the same people who were angry about the Eich being given the CEO position at Mozilla.
You're also roughly stating that because there are other reasons to dislike Dropbox, it is inappropriate to complain about their choice of someone who has historically be pro-surveillance and supportive of state-sanctioned torture (in certain contexts, like the state doing the torturing for the US). I isn't really 'inappropriate' to complain about both the color and performance of a car, and likewise I don't think that disliking some other attribute of Dropbox reasonably precludes me complaining about their choice of board members.
I didn't much like the way that Eich was attacked for his support of Prop 8, even though I didn't agree with Prop 8. Eich's views on same-sex marriage really don't relate Mozilla (I don't think), and they don't really make him a bad or nasty person either - at least, not themselves without knowing the reasoning behind them.
That Rice previously demonstrated support of intensive surveillance by government does directly relate to Dropbox. I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to criticise. I think that her support of torture and extraordinary rendition makes her an unpleasant person, but I'm not sure that so much relates to her role at Dropbox.
Your obsession with what 'they' do, those dirty liberals, is slightly bizarre and makes you sound like a crazy person. Also, you're presenting a weak caricature of liberals and then pretending it is reality. That doesn't make you sound clever, or steadfast in your role as an opponent of liberals. It makes you sound like someone who is to polarized to be able to think straight.
Right! To be fair, it's really hard someone to find someone for your board of directors who isn't a war criminal.
The choice was between Condoleeza Rice and Slobodan Milosevic and he backed out due to health reasons. I understand they sent feelers out to Joseph Kony, but he thought they were children's arms, so he cut them off.
Welcome Condi! Maybe a little more money will help you sleep at night, because you're looking a little tired, girl.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Trolling grammar nazis just makes you a different kind of idiot
The text book reason to put someone on the Board of Directors of a company is for their expertise in the business. She has NONE.
Condie Rice is a bureaucrat - a shitty one at that.
She is there for one reason - connections.
If you or I had a job history like her's, we would be unemployable. But for the ruling and CEO class, being a fuck up means nothing as long as you know the right people.
The issue has nothing to do with Iraq. Nor the fact that she's a woman, or that she is Black. The real issue here is that in the wake of Snowdon's revelations about widespread surveillance of the general public by three letter government agencies, a former National Security Advisor is being appointed to the board of a widely used online storage site that has thus far managed to convince some people that it is on the side of privacy.
I find it very amusing how the tune has changed with regards to how vote with their wallet and corporate moral character.
For the longest time the argument was "Well if you don't like company x don't buy their products!". With the implication being that if you don't actually stop, then you are just a whiner or a hypocrite. But now people really are taking their business elsewhere. The actions of a company or the people that represent a company is effecting the bottom line. Yet somehow old "vote with your wallet" is no longer acceptable. Somehow judging a company based on it's moral character is an assault on free speech, maybe even down right persecution!
For a long time people (on Slashdot especially) have been warning of the dangers of putting your data in the cloud. Of the amount of personal information that can be gleaned from your web browsing habits. That that big business is cooperating with the government (willingly or not) in a massive breach of privacy. So how and can anyone be surprised that customers demand moral character from leadership of companies to whom we are handing over so much personal information?
If you had to make a choice between companies to store YOUR personal information and your choices are: Company A with Bruce Schneier on it's board of directors, and Company B with Dick Cheney on it's board of directors. Does anyone seriously think that difference shouldn't effect the decision?
I for one have no sympathy. Yes a company has every right to alienate their customers, but customers also have every right to vote with their wallets.
Just because the last three companies she was on the board of did not need to be sold out, it doesn't follow that she won't sell this one out. Remember, warrantless wiretapping began on her watch. As a former National Security Advisor, her ties to the intelligence community are strong.
should her life be ruined over the fact that she made some mistakes while in government?
yes. when you 'make mistakes' at that kind of level and it affects the WHOLE WORLD in a hugely negative way, YES. 1000 times yes.
next question?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
>*that's sarcastic in case you can't tell, but hopefully it'll help point out that the left needs to lay off the racist card so hard*
No, it's actually the right that needs to lay off the "race card" card. Seriously, every time they bring up some pointless complaint about Obama, they whine defensively that they're only restrained from criticism because they'll be called racists.
No shit, when your complaint is that Obama's a Kenyan Marxo-Islamic Fascist Communist, that's going to happen.
Doesn't mean you can't find some legitimate complaint to make about Obama, but the conservative right can't even manage that most days of the week.
Dropbox starts scanning your files and prevents you from sharing what *it thinks* are copyrighted materials, and instead, you guys bitch and moan over some Hollywood-celeb-type bullshit?
USA had absolutely no grounds to remove Saddam Hussein from the power.
The only reason they received U.N mandate is because they fabricated the WMD evidence and outright lied at the hearing.
On top of it they captured people - detained unlawfully without a charge or trial and tortured during their captivity.
Condi Rice and the rest of the Bush Jr. administration should be tried for their crimes.
Heh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
If killing people and attacking countries is enough for you to call for invasion and hanging, I assume you would be fine with the US being invaded and roughly a gazillion people being finally tried for their crimes?
And why stop with Saddam? There are so many way more brutal dictators around the world, so what gives? Are you unaware that the US govt actively supported worse than him, or are you just chosing to ignore it? Don't even pretend: his crime wasn't that he "invaded his neighboring country", but that he did so on his own accord, disobeying the US. That's what made him an enemy, not the gassing or being a dictator. And then there is the fact that the US was always keen on controlling the oil in that region... so either you play along or you get replaced, that is all; how brutal you are doesn't play into it other than that you get lauded for it while you follow orders, and demonized otherwise. Saddam was an asshole, but that doesn't make the US govt less of a war profiteering, hypocritical BS expedition, or you less of an useful idiot, who essentially gets to pay big money to have blood on your hands. Sorry, I know nobody wants to hear something like that, but step one to fix things is to stop pretending you're not being played like a piano.
What i dont like is late comers to companies that get IPO, and then these get millions, ahead of the hardworking coders who started there from day 0.
I dont mind her there, but if the company IPOs for billions, she should not get a cent, as I cannot see anything she can contribute that would add to the book value or earnings values. /*
Actually, when IPO time rolls around people with "names" can add a great deal to the IPO. I can certainly believe that a former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor might have contributions to make on the "privacy and security" front, which is the focal point of the criticism. That aside, the IPO's that I have been involved in always included bringing in people with the right resume in high level posts at the last minute. That way the big institutional investors who are looking in to the company can say "Aha, I see they have big name official on the board, and look, they have the former CIO from Transamerica. They have all the right people in place to move the company forward!" And yes, it pissed me off that someone who had nothing to do with building the company made more than I did (by a couple of orders of magnitude) on the IPO. But Mr. Analyst working for the big investment group doesn't want to hear "we have this great guy who is super-bright and has been working 100 hours a week since the beginning as CIO".
But that is irrelevant to the major shareholders - they are simply asking themselves "can we make 30% more if we bring in this handful of people for the IPO?" If they can make an extra $200 million by spending 20 million, they'll do it every time. Once the VC guys get involved, loyalty kinda flies out the window.
So I guess the moral of the story is, make sure you get paid on the initial investments, because that might be the last bite of the apple you get.
Just as United States had "no grounds" to remove Hitler from power. Nazi Germany did not attack the United States in Pearl Harbor. Did United States illegally fight the war against Nazi Germany, too? Everyone knew that it was Imperial Japan which attacked Pearl Harbor.
Ridiculous comparison. Germany had invaded nearly all of continental Europe and North Africa, and the US barely lifted a finger. Know your history... prior to Pearl Harbor, a large portion of this country wanted little to do with Nazi Germany and what was going on in Europe, beyond what money they could make from trade. Few in the US were concerned about how Germany was treating its people, or the people it invaded. The economy was finally showing signs of pickup after the depression, and nobody wanted war. Germany was Europe's problem, not ours.
The US first declared war only on Japan after Perl Harbor. Then Germany then declared war on the US, according to its treaty with Japan. It was only then the US declared war on Germany. Then we kick everyone's butt, without asking permission or crying about BS WMDs. Then we rebuilt our former enemies with the Marshall Plan and hired what Nazi scientists we could get our hands on to run NASA.
I don't recall a wartime ally of Iraq attacking our naval base in Hawaii. I don't recall the US declaring war on that allay as a result of the attack. And I don't recall Iraq declaring the war on the US in response. Iraq couldn't even succeed in invading a neighbor less than 1/10th its size with no military.... They had no scientists useful for a space program. Aside from the ethical implications, nobody worried about invading Iraq. It was clear we would win that one. To compare the lead-up to the Iraq invasion with WWII is a fantasy - a fantasy that some fans of Lil' Bush's administration apparently hold to this day.
And the US did nothing to adequately rebuild Iraq - not that there was much we could do beyond inserting another iron-fisted dictator.
About the only thing that was really the same between WWII and the Iraq war was that we kicked ass. But kicking Iraq's ass kind of looses its luster without the threat of enslavement by Nazis.... Perhaps that is why some still hold onto this comparison of Iraq to Nazi Germany - its lipstick on a pig.
Saddam Hussein had declared war on the United States. He even tried to assassinate a US President. Oh, and if "declared war" is a justification for invasion, does that mean that Hitler was justified in invading France? France did issue a formal declaration of war a year before Hitler's invasion. The truth is that our war on Iraq was just as if not more justified than our war on Germany. He was allied with our enemies, he took steps to harm us and our allies. He wasn't successful as much as we thought he was, but he was on a war path against us. And had he not been removed, no one knows where we would be today.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
but lying to the American people to stage an invasion of Iraq, a country without ICBMs (and their inherent ability to deliver nuclear destruction to America), was not just a crime, it was a TREASONOUS act for which the architects of the Iraq War (Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld) should be prosecuted and then executed.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.