My first reaction at Dropbox was the need to move and launch faster, as I couldn't understand why we only released the desktop client every couple of months, unlike the daily releases at Facebook.

At Dropbox, we needed to foster what was unique to our culture, which was 'sweating the details' to ensure that users wouldn't lose important files, like wedding pictures or PhD theses. Quality was crucial at Dropbox, leading us to move slower than Facebook because the last 10% of polish took about 50% of our engineering time.

To accelerate progress at Dropbox, I realized the fastest way was to grow the team size, as we started with only 30 engineers who were spread too thin across various platforms.

In the early years at Facebook, we should have focused on iteration speed rather than building a large team and a polished product.

The partnership came together when I realized my heart wasn't in venture capital; I wanted to build. I felt lost after leaving Dropbox, where I was part of a product that 400-500 million people were using.

Dropbox's founders faced challenges in predicting their success early on because many others were working on similar solutions, highlighting the importance of execution.

When Dropbox was growing rapidly, we focused on user activation and retention, realizing that many users signed up but didn't engage with the product effectively.

At Dropbox, my role title didn't matter; what was important was doing whatever it took to succeed. In 10 years, people will remember you for what you built and its impact, not your title.

Despite initial skepticism from investors about Dropbox competing with Google, I emphasized that just because others had tried similar ideas didn't mean it was a bad one.