Dropbox CEO Sees 2021 as Chance to Fix WFH ‘Pain Points’

It was a “transformational year” for Dropbox, as the world “abruptly shifted to working from home due to the pandemic,” said CEO Drew Houston on a Q4 call Thursday. “We helped many of our customers through this transition” and “adapted quickly to the new environment ourselves,” reorienting product “to address many of the new challenges and opportunities that distributed work presents,” he said. Revenue for the year increased 15% to $1.91 billion, he said: “We ended 2020 with more than 15 million paying users and 525,000 business teams.” Dropbox experienced a surge in demand during the onset of COVID-19, including “elevated trial starts” that were “mostly isolated to the first half,” said Houston. “Engagement broadly has been up.” Permanent work-from-home rituals in 2021 and beyond “will be a tailwind, given that folks are shifting to distributed work and Dropbox becomes a lot more important when you're working out of the screen,” he said. “We see a lot of opportunity to address new pain points in the virtual work experience. Everybody has a need to keep all their content organized. It's a very fragmented and distracting and overwhelming experience now.”