As Dropbox Transforms From Utility To Platform, The Bulls And Bears Emerge

Earlier this week, one of the Valleys most steady high-growth technology companies held its first-ever developer conference -- DBX -- marking a potentially historical turning point for an already large company with the potential to become even larger. The company -- Dropbox -- has all the ingredients for the breakout status it has earnestly earned. The founders are from MIT, the idea looked simple (perhaps, only a feature) that some of todays savviest investors passed on early, the company took root inside Y Combinator, perfectly timed its cloud storage offering, differentiated against incumbent solutions on speed and efficacy, fine-tuned and arbitraged a wickedly clever business model against declining storage fees and increasing rates of device obsolescence, famously spurned an acquisition offer by Steve Jobs, a multi-billion dollar valuation, and now, with a feature in WIRED and from 2013 looking ahead, is embarking on a path very few companies get the opportunity to experience: to potentially be a great, independent, standalone technology company.