I don't know about Dropbox but for example Twitter is still losing money since 2012. Twitter is way overvalue in the market and has lost around $2 billion since inception. Obviously it's not the same as 2000, these companies have revenue, but some of the are not making even a profit. If they continue to throw tech companies with revenue and losing money as IPOs prepare for the next tech bubble. It will burst.
And that was purely a tax-avoidance strategy. Top employees have always been compensated via stock instead of any form of profit sharing. Now that Amazon literally can't spend their money quickly enough, they're doing stock buybacks for the exact same reason: it's a technique to distribute dividends without causing a taxable event.
We'll see when Dropbox files whether or not they are executing the same strategy. My guess is they are, since it's hard for me to believe you can't attain profitability on $1B in revenue for a file-syncing platform.
But I have not personally inspected their financial statements and conducted an audit to confirm this with my own two eyes, if that's what you're asking.
