Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Dropbox Loses High-Profile Design Head Soleio

The one-named exec posted his plans on Facebook, for which he designed the “Like” button.

Soleio

In a Facebook post tonight, Dropbox’s high-profile head designer Soleio said he was leaving his job at the cloud storage company.

“Today marks my last day as a full-time Dropboxer,” he wrote. “I’m transitioning back to serving as a company advisor over the coming month.”

A Dropbox PR spokeswoman confirmed the move, but said that Soleio would continue to help the San Francisco company on a number of initiatives. One of Dropbox’s top designers, Gentry Underwood, has actually been leading design for the last three months, she added, although the company had not announced the change.

Underwood, who had previously been the head of consumer products at Dropbox, came to the company via its acquisition of Mailbox, where he was its CEO and co-founder.

It’s still a big departure, since Soleio — he typically uses the one name, but his last name is Cuervo — had led a team of 40 people on some key initiatives at the company. That includes its Carousel photo app and also its stealth efforts to build enterprise apps to compete with Google, Microsoft and smaller players like Quip.

Before joining Dropbox, Soleio was the second designer hired at Facebook and was credited with its famous “Like” button. He left in 2011 and his hiring at Dropbox in 2012 was a big coup — he has been much touted there as focusing on creating beautiful consumer apps, some of which have worked and some not as much.

In his Facebook post, Soleio said he was going to focus on design education reform.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Politics
OpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agendaOpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agenda
Politics

The AI company released a set of highly progressive policy ideas. There’s just one small problem.

By Eric Levitz
Future Perfect
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
Future Perfect

Protecting astronauts in space — and maybe even Mars — will help transform health on Earth.

By Shayna Korol
Podcasts
The importance of space toilets, explainedThe importance of space toilets, explained
Podcast
Podcasts

Houston, we have a plumbing problem.

By Peter Balonon-Rosen and Sean Rameswaram
Technology
What happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputerWhat happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputer
Technology

How they’re using AI at the lab that created the atom bomb.

By Joshua Keating
Future Perfect
Humanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious missionHumanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious mission
Future Perfect

Space barons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don’t seem religious. But their quest to colonize outer space is.

By Sigal Samuel