5 ms·

There have been major organizational problems at Mozilla for a long time that precipitated this. Many of us saw something like this coming, saw gaps and unclear

There have been major organizational problems at Mozilla for a long time that precipitated this. Many of us saw something like this coming, saw gaps and unclear responsibilities, reported these gaps and confusions up the chain, and were reprimanded and financially penalized for asking the tough questions. The questions were never answered, and we all quit, were fired, or lost motivation as a result. This is a tech problem, yes. Cert renewal has bitten everyone in a high profile way (apple, google, and ms have all had renewal-related outages in recent years). But this was preventable at Mozilla. Ask a Mozillian about IT and Cloud Sevices, and what their respective responsibilities are. Ask Mozilla’s VP of IT- who is responsible for cert renewal? Ask Mozilla leadership- why are people afraid to ask questions?

antihero 7y ago
If you're going to quit anyway, and not saying this is a good idea, what prevents you literally going and yelling at these idiots demanding answers as to why they are not doing their jobs?
- former_mozzer 7y ago
  So many people have done this. Watch videos of past Mozilla All Hands meetings. You see the questions asked, you see the leaders dodge, and you see that soon after the askers are gone and leaders say- you have nothing to be afraid of, you don’t need to ask questions anonymously. “Executives” at 1000 person Mozilla are so distant from the workers, and middle managers listen to executives, not staff. It is so sad because Mozilla staff are smart, caring people who love the web, but they are powerless and afraid in the org today.
  - gspetr 7y ago
    It seems that to enact a change somebody would have to go public and talk with big journos to bring this dysfunctional stuff to light, much like the recent Bioware scandal.
  - user17843 7y ago
    Thank you for speaking out here! I hope that mozilla employees manage to free themselves from their leadership and change the organization from within. It's possible, even though most employees who could change something have decided to simply leave over the years. Maybe mozilla needs a stark revenue drop to get humble again?
  - jfk13 7y ago
    Sure, the organisation is far from perfect, and makes mistakes, but as a current Mozilla employee, I don't recognise this description.
greendestiny_re 7y ago
I feel you. I saw this kind of thing coming back in 2010, when Firefox started copying Chrome blow for blow. I saw Google's influence on Mozilla and knew it could only turn out poorly. By the way, what can you say about that?
- konart 7y ago
  Maybe before talking about this he\she should provide any kind of proof of ever working at Mozilla at all?
  - sfink 7y ago
    (I work for Mozilla) I'm guessing the poster is legitimately former staff. It's not hard to find disgruntled people in any organization (especially if you look at those who have left.) And they'll often have legitimate reasons. But the question is really whether there's a consistent pattern of problems - actual rot, so to speak. I haven't seen much, but then i know that some parts of the org are very different than others. I can say that I have publicly complained about a number of things in the last several years, and never felt any repercussions as a result. That includes comments made directly to the CEO during All-Hands sessions, so I'm not just talking hypothetically. Yet I have also heard about a handful of cases where people have been treated unfairly as a result of public comments or actions, including a couple of friends of mine. So shit happens here, it's definitely not perfect and the problems aren't all in the past. But overall, I still feel like Mozilla is substantially better than most similar companies. Just my perspective.
dajonker 7y ago
You basically just described any sufficiently large organization. Complaining is not helping anyone in these situations, the only thing you can do to change things is to go ahead and try to change things. Reporting things up the chain hardly ever works because the chain is too busy with their own issues and politics. You have to make it worth their while.
- rat9988 7y ago
  >the only thing you can do to change things is to go ahead and try to change things how? Reporting up the chain is THE way to change things. When it doesn't work what are you supposed to do?
  - armada651 7y ago
    Take on the responsibility for the gap yourself. If you get assigned something from up the chain that gets in the way of that new found responsibility report up the chain that they need to assign it to someone else first.
    - xvector 7y ago
      If I am slowed down in my day-to-day sprint because I decided to take on a task management wasn't willing to fund/approve, I would be in much deeper trouble
- former_mozzer 7y ago
  Mozilla is an organization of 1000 employees. Executives act like it’s 100,000 employees.
- hrktb 7y ago
  > the only thing you can do to change things is to go ahead and try to change things. You are describing taking risks and/or being penalized for little to no potential reward in most organizations. You are doing something you are not asked to, so any inconvenience or side effect, whatever the cause is, is on you. And as it was not marketed internaly few people will be aware you did anything, accordingly you will get little recognition (financial or any). It also presumes you already accomplished everything that was under your responsability, which is basically impossible in any org where objectives or KPIs are set so you hit a 80% target. You’ll then have to explain why you prioritized a seemingly random task, and bothered the other teams to help you do it without consulting your boss or their bosses. Basically this approach could work for critical issues that are obvious they should be fixed. But then it should also be obvious to your boss, so getting their clearance is the normal way to do it. This is I think the reason why people just leave instead of fighting a losing battle to fix issues they care about but the upper ranks don’t prioritize.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kjdui 7y ago
Seems like quite the accusation no? I mean I hate Mozilla as much as the next guy but any kind of proof, even if it's a Twitter thread from some Mozillian, would be nice.
hnaccy 7y ago
How did executive/management at Mozilla become like this? Was it slow rot or some event triggering it?
stock_toaster 7y ago
Oh man, remember that thing where firefox just randomly installed that LookingGlass Mr. Robot thing (end of 2017 I think..)? This was their second chance already...

antihero 7y ago

If you're going to quit anyway, and not saying this is a good idea, what prevents you literally going and yelling at these idiots demanding answers as to why they are not doing their jobs?

former_mozzer 7y ago
So many people have done this. Watch videos of past Mozilla All Hands meetings. You see the questions asked, you see the leaders dodge, and you see that soon after the askers are gone and leaders say- you have nothing to be afraid of, you don’t need to ask questions anonymously. “Executives” at 1000 person Mozilla are so distant from the workers, and middle managers listen to executives, not staff. It is so sad because Mozilla staff are smart, caring people who love the web, but they are powerless and afraid in the org today.
- gspetr 7y ago
  It seems that to enact a change somebody would have to go public and talk with big journos to bring this dysfunctional stuff to light, much like the recent Bioware scandal.
- user17843 7y ago
  Thank you for speaking out here! I hope that mozilla employees manage to free themselves from their leadership and change the organization from within. It's possible, even though most employees who could change something have decided to simply leave over the years. Maybe mozilla needs a stark revenue drop to get humble again?
- jfk13 7y ago
  Sure, the organisation is far from perfect, and makes mistakes, but as a current Mozilla employee, I don't recognise this description.

greendestiny_re 7y ago

I feel you. I saw this kind of thing coming back in 2010, when Firefox started copying Chrome blow for blow. I saw Google's influence on Mozilla and knew it could only turn out poorly. By the way, what can you say about that?

konart 7y ago
Maybe before talking about this he\she should provide any kind of proof of ever working at Mozilla at all?
- sfink 7y ago
  (I work for Mozilla) I'm guessing the poster is legitimately former staff. It's not hard to find disgruntled people in any organization (especially if you look at those who have left.) And they'll often have legitimate reasons. But the question is really whether there's a consistent pattern of problems - actual rot, so to speak. I haven't seen much, but then i know that some parts of the org are very different than others. I can say that I have publicly complained about a number of things in the last several years, and never felt any repercussions as a result. That includes comments made directly to the CEO during All-Hands sessions, so I'm not just talking hypothetically. Yet I have also heard about a handful of cases where people have been treated unfairly as a result of public comments or actions, including a couple of friends of mine. So shit happens here, it's definitely not perfect and the problems aren't all in the past. But overall, I still feel like Mozilla is substantially better than most similar companies. Just my perspective.

dajonker 7y ago

You basically just described any sufficiently large organization. Complaining is not helping anyone in these situations, the only thing you can do to change things is to go ahead and try to change things. Reporting things up the chain hardly ever works because the chain is too busy with their own issues and politics. You have to make it worth their while.

rat9988 7y ago
>the only thing you can do to change things is to go ahead and try to change things how? Reporting up the chain is THE way to change things. When it doesn't work what are you supposed to do?
- armada651 7y ago
  Take on the responsibility for the gap yourself. If you get assigned something from up the chain that gets in the way of that new found responsibility report up the chain that they need to assign it to someone else first.
  - xvector 7y ago
    If I am slowed down in my day-to-day sprint because I decided to take on a task management wasn't willing to fund/approve, I would be in much deeper trouble
former_mozzer 7y ago
Mozilla is an organization of 1000 employees. Executives act like it’s 100,000 employees.
hrktb 7y ago
> the only thing you can do to change things is to go ahead and try to change things. You are describing taking risks and/or being penalized for little to no potential reward in most organizations. You are doing something you are not asked to, so any inconvenience or side effect, whatever the cause is, is on you. And as it was not marketed internaly few people will be aware you did anything, accordingly you will get little recognition (financial or any). It also presumes you already accomplished everything that was under your responsability, which is basically impossible in any org where objectives or KPIs are set so you hit a 80% target. You’ll then have to explain why you prioritized a seemingly random task, and bothered the other teams to help you do it without consulting your boss or their bosses. Basically this approach could work for critical issues that are obvious they should be fixed. But then it should also be obvious to your boss, so getting their clearance is the normal way to do it. This is I think the reason why people just leave instead of fighting a losing battle to fix issues they care about but the upper ranks don’t prioritize.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kjdui 7y ago

Seems like quite the accusation no? I mean I hate Mozilla as much as the next guy but any kind of proof, even if it's a Twitter thread from some Mozillian, would be nice.

hnaccy 7y ago

How did executive/management at Mozilla become like this? Was it slow rot or some event triggering it?

stock_toaster 7y ago

Oh man, remember that thing where firefox just randomly installed that LookingGlass Mr. Robot thing (end of 2017 I think..)? This was their second chance already...