- The speaker worked on a project called Cove, which was acquired by Dropbox.
- They were brought in to accelerate progress and scale the company and product.
- Initially, they wanted to move faster and have a faster release cycle like at Facebook.
- However, they realized that quality and attention to detail were more important at Dropbox.
- They focused on recruiting and grew the company from 90 to 270 people in less than 7 months.
- The speaker did various roles at Dropbox, with the main focus being on doing what it took to win.

In this excerpt from Ruchi's talk at the 2015 Female Founders Conference, she shares what she learned by working at Facebook and Dropbox.

So after about a year of working on Cove, it was the best year ever because I learned the most.

We wanted to build at scale, and Dropbox gave us a bigger stage to do just that.

We loved the people, and we loved the product, and we were so excited about our potential impact there.

Aditya and I were brought in to accelerate progress and to scale the company and the product.

My first reaction was that we needed to move faster.

I couldn't understand why we only released the desktop client in Dropbox once every couple of months.

Maybe we needed a faster release cycle, like the 1 we had at Facebook, every day or every other day.

I couldn't understand why we spent large amounts of time fixing esoteric bugs like the desktop client for Scandinavian version, no, Scandinavian Windows XP version 3, when it only impacted less than 0.1% of our user base.

It would be terrible if you lost those wedding pictures.

Or that PhD thesis that you were working on.

I realized that values like move fast and break things didn't apply to Dropbox.

They worked at Facebook because Facebook was fundamentally about connecting people.

And the only thing that mattered was adding as many people as you could onto the service.

Back then, if you built beautiful, reliable software, no 1 cared.

And for an engineer, that was absolutely mind-boggling.

It essentially meant I could build and launch.

I would catch these errors and bugs by trailing the error logs and then would fix them real time.

Now, if I cultivated these same values at Dropbox, things would have just been a disaster.

We needed to foster what was unique to Dropbox.

And at Dropbox, that was sweating the details.

And the only way I can explain that is if you click that little blue box on the upper right of your computer and it stopped working once every thousand times, you would think your computer is broken and then try to get it replaced.

Quality was really, really important to Dropbox.

Not slowly, mind you, but slower than Facebook.

Because that last 10% of polish took about 50% of engineering time.

And once I realized that, I understood that the fastest way to accelerate progress was to grow the size of the team.

When we joined Dropbox, there were only 30 engineers.

And everyone was spread too thin across all the different platforms, web, desktop, mobile, and across all the different OSs.

So when Drew, the CEO, asked me, what do you want to work on first?

Having been an engineer, a product manager, a product-facing CEO all my life, I picked recruiting.

But I was determined to change how it was done at Dropbox.

I set this audacious goal of growing the company from 90 people to 270 people in less than 7 months.

And we all here in the audience know that hiring is an extremely difficult problem in Silicon Valley.

I was even harder for us to reach that goal, but we did.

And not only did we reach the goal, we were determined to hire people that we could learn from, Hire people that would help us improve our definition of quality.

And then also make sure that they were culturally integrated into the company.

And then after recruiting, I did a lot of other things at Dropbox.

Everything from communications to marketing and even product.

My role, title, or position didn't matter.

The only thing that mattered was doing what it took to win.

And 10 years from now, no 1 is going to remember that title.

But they are going to remember you by what you


Speaker 0: So after about a year of working on Cove, it was the best year ever because I learned the most. Cove was acquired by Dropbox. We wanted to build at scale, and Dropbox gave us a bigger stage to do just that. We loved the people, and we loved the product, and we were so excited about our potential impact there. Aditya and I were brought in to accelerate progress and to scale the company and the product.

My first reaction was that we needed to move faster. We needed to launch faster. I couldn't understand why we only released the desktop client in Dropbox once every couple of months. Maybe we needed a faster release cycle, like the 1 we had at Facebook, every day or every other day. I couldn't understand why we spent large amounts of time fixing esoteric bugs like the desktop client for Scandinavian version, no, Scandinavian Windows XP version 3, when it only impacted less than 0.1% of our user base.

But then it sunk in. It would be terrible if you lost those wedding pictures. Or that PhD thesis that you were working on. Or your life's work. I realized that values like move fast and break things didn't apply to Dropbox.

They worked at Facebook because Facebook was fundamentally about connecting people. And the only thing that mattered was adding as many people as you could onto the service. Back then, if you built beautiful, reliable software, no 1 cared. And for an engineer, that was absolutely mind-boggling. It essentially meant I could build and launch.

I would catch these errors and bugs by trailing the error logs and then would fix them real time. Now, if I cultivated these same values at Dropbox, things would have just been a disaster. We needed to foster what was unique to Dropbox. And at Dropbox, that was sweating the details. And the only way I can explain that is if you click that little blue box on the upper right of your computer and it stopped working once every thousand times, you would think your computer is broken and then try to get it replaced.

Quality was really, really important to Dropbox. And as a result, we moved slower. Not slowly, mind you, but slower than Facebook. Because that last 10% of polish took about 50% of engineering time. And once I realized that, I understood that the fastest way to accelerate progress was to grow the size of the team.

When we joined Dropbox, there were only 30 engineers. And everyone was spread too thin across all the different platforms, web, desktop, mobile, and across all the different OSs. So when Drew, the CEO, asked me, what do you want to work on first? I said, recruiting. I surprised even myself.

Having been an engineer, a product manager, a product-facing CEO all my life, I picked recruiting. I'd never done it before. But I was determined to change how it was done at Dropbox. I set this audacious goal of growing the company from 90 people to 270 people in less than 7 months. And we all here in the audience know that hiring is an extremely difficult problem in Silicon Valley.

I was even harder for us to reach that goal, but we did. And not only did we reach the goal, we were determined to hire people that we could learn from, Hire people that would help us improve our definition of quality. And then also make sure that they were culturally integrated into the company. And then after recruiting, I did a lot of other things at Dropbox. Everything from communications to marketing and even product.

My role, title, or position didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was doing what it took to win. And 10 years from now, no 1 is going to remember that title. But they are going to remember you by what you

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Ruchi Sanghvi on Sweating the Details