Cultural value: Meir Morgenstern builds out a global Dropbox

Building a great user experience requires great minds. We’ve spoken to eight Dropboxers who are working to make the world work better. By sharing what these leaders are up to in their daily routines, we hope to highlight the values that grow our culture.

When he took on the job of site manager for Dropbox’s Tel Aviv outpost in 2015, Meir Morgenstern assumed responsibility for everything from the culture and strategy of their site to branding and interactions with the media. Doing so required Meir to think about collaboration in every aspect of his work day.

“What stood out to me from the get-go, joining a more established company like Dropbox, was the emphasis on a strong engineering culture. There were tangible values on display. People took them seriously. Things like trust (from our customers) and being detail-oriented influenced our day-to-day and were a part of our team’s DNA. And because we were a part of a larger company, these values were part of a shared language across different offices.

Getting the cultural value language out of the way allows us to be more productive. We can look at what the other offices are doing and try and see what works for us. Specific to Israel, there were local engineering nuances we were able to apply as well to operate efficiently. The differences between our offices, and the collaboration between them, have really allowed us to create better global teams.”

Meir and his team were acquired by Dropbox in 2015 after collaborating with them on a third-party application. Understanding that growing his team required thinking of himself as a work in progress, Meir made sure to stay humble while interacting with his new global coworkers.

“We’re based in Israel, but most of the Dropbox products we worked on involved our peers in San Francisco. Because of this, our team had to be very collaborative in order to work fluidly with our friends in the United States. It’s something that we’ve worked hard to improve on over the years — in the beginning, we had a lot of learning to do because of both the distance and cultural differences.

The Tel Aviv team was behind the Dropbox AdminX initiative launched in 2016. I realized quickly that collaborating well with others was essential for team delivery. That requires defining what you want to achieve and making sure you get there — making sure that the value of collaboration is at the forefront of your thoughts.”

With offices in Tel Aviv, Sydney, Toyko, and more, we’re always looking to add to our worldwide team. Check out the opportunities to join the Dropbox team at our jobs page. We’ll have more interviews with digital leaders like Meir soon.