Dropbox is clearly growing faster than their revenue cashflow can support, so it's quite reasonable for them to continue to raise money. It's obvious to everyone in the industry that Dropbox intends to IPO sometime in the next couple years. Hiring this COO allows Drew to focus on 1) hiring 2) IPO issues. Neither Drew nor Arash has IPO experience, and while it's easy enough to get advisors (and hire a great CFO), it still seems to be the case that these companies bring in a couple more IPO-experienced execs before.

They were pretty under-resourced on CFO until 2011 at least -- I don't know who they have now. I'd watch their CFO hiring for the most impending signs of an IPO. Look what happened at Facebook -- hiring David Ebersman.

IMO, CEO of Motorola Mobility to even a Director at Dropbox, Apple, etc. would be an upgrade.

Okay. Fair point. I am probably still thinking of the old Motorola Inc which has been divided into two organizations.

he was CEO of a division of Google worth $3B to COO at a $10B company. Seems natural to me

it's the equivalent of a Sheryl-Zuck type of relation. He'll lead all business and Drew will lead product. Dropbox is basically ran by ex-Googlers now: Marc Leibowitz, Ramsey H., Woodside, etc.

Title can be misleading. He went from a low growth division with existing processes to a high growth firm he can help build.

It's kind of like saying a director of internal IT with 50 direct reports is taking a demotion to be the first engineering manager at a 10 person startup. Different environment.