7 ms·

This lay-off is not because of Covid or racism. It is because of the overwhelmingly awful executive leadership at Mozilla. Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mo

This lay-off is not because of Covid or racism. It is because of the overwhelmingly awful executive leadership at Mozilla. Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mozilla into the ground over the last 8-10 years has been like watching a bus accident in slow motion. FirefoxOS anyone? The only benefit Mozilla now provides is a warning to companies that place how liked and popular employees are over how skilled and hard working they are. Mozilla has collected such a large group of well behaved and well liked underperformers to an absurd level like no other company in history. This is no more obvious than the woefully under-qualified and perennially under-performing leadership. Someone please explain to me how Mitchell Baker continues to have a job? How is Mozilla still paying this person millions, yes millions, of dollars? Pocket?! You are going to save Mozilla with a glorified bookmarking app? What a sad waste.

nextaccountic 6y ago
> This lay-off is not because of Covid or racism. It is because of the overwhelmingly awful executive leadership at Mozilla. Yeah! They are cutting out key technical employees while not cutting top-level exec salaries. https://twitter.com/lizardlucas42/status/1293232090985705478 https://twitter.com/lizardlucas42/status/1293232090985705478
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I never really understand why people ask for things like this. Presumably Mozilla is paying these salaries because that's what they need to pay to hire good people at that level. Why would those people stay at Mozilla if they suddenly had their salary cut? They are probably already making less than they could make in a comparable position elsewhere.
  - belorn 6y ago
    In comparison, how much are eff paying Cindy Cohn to be CEO?
    - morelisp 6y ago
      If I read the 990 right, 257500. This is 2x the lowest officer salary and 30% higher than the second-highest. By comparison Mitchell is 8x the second-highest officer and 17x the lowest. There may be more comparable salaries at MoCo, but those are not on the 990s.
  - dtech 6y ago
    Because people feel like C-level compensation is way too high, and people feel this is disconnected from actual performance. C-level compensation has risen way, way faster in the last decades than general employee compensation [1]. It doesn't change because upper management is all in the "cult", and there's no incentive to lower salaries. If all programmers (or any other profession) were in charge of their own salaries, I'd suspect something similar happening with people rewarding each other more and more compensation while pointing at other companies to justify it. [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
    - DangerousPie 6y ago
      I can see how one can argue that C-level compensation is too high (although there are also good arguments against that) but surely you can't expect Mozilla to solve this problem by themselves? If Mozilla cuts C-level salaries while the rest of the industry doesn't then why would any of them keep working for Mozilla?
      - dtech 6y ago
        This is a crap argument. Every company/NGO can use that and it doesn't solve the problem. Mozilla as a self-proclaimed altruistic ideologically-driven org should lead by example. If the current CEO, whom from the outside is not doing a great job, is not willing to. You find a different CEO. I am not convinced that no one wants to do the job for $500k instead of $2.5m. Whether that person would be good/bad/worse is pure speculation, but it's not like organizations are taking the chance.
        mgkimsal 6y ago
        "Whether that person would be good/bad/worse is pure speculation" they'd probably have to have at least a negative $2m impact before it mattered right? revenue on its own may not even be the best measure, if the revenue comes via methods that conflict with the larger ideology. I don't know if Mozilla has that conflict with itself or not. Your point is accurate though, and I've held the same views for a while now. This sort of thinking would seem to dictate that the next Mozilla CEO will need to come in at around $2.5m - that's been defined as the floor now. Regardless of how well that person executes, they've got that base. And... you can't really judge them after 3 months. You'd need to give them a year to make a 'real' assessment... and you've just spent that money on someone, regardless of outcome.
- LockAndLol 6y ago
  An NGO has execs with salaries >1M??? How is that still an NGO?
  - whiddershins 6y ago
    If you aren’t being sarcastic ... go research NGOs.
    - kindatrue 6y ago
      Fascinating stuff! https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/credit-cards/15-highet-paid-charity-ceos-12807750 https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/credit-cards/15-h...
  - smsm42 6y ago
    NGO or non-profit doesn't mean they took a vow of poverty. It means the corporation does not distribute profits to shareholders (and may be exempt of some income taxes). It still can be loaded with money, and many NGOs are.
- devy 6y ago
  The current CEO of Mozilla Corporation and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation (the parent organization of Mozilla Corporation) earned a total compensation of $2,458,350 [1] on a $436 million company revenue on 2018, or half a percent of the company's revenue. I can't find 2019 stats, but on a company that's not doing well, CEO's comp seems high. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#cite_note-14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#cite_note-14
  - endemic 6y ago
    I can't think of a good reason why Mitchell Baker should keep her job. I'm fine with competitive executive compensation, but what has she done other than lay off the people doing the work?
    - waheoo 6y ago
      How else do you justify their salary. Increasing revenue? please.
      - devy 6y ago
        > Increasing revenue? Yes. Mozilla Corporation, The wholly owned subsidiary of Non-profit Mozilla Foundation, is a for-profit organization and taxable entity. [1] For any for-profit organization, increasing profit is one of the major responsibility of the CEO. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
        stingraycharles 6y ago
        I think the parent means that she failed at this. At the very least, her salary went up while Firefox market share went down.
        waheoo 6y ago
        No I meant that I order to justify her salary she needs to either increase profits or reduce costs. Looks like she went with reducing costs ...
josteink 6y ago
> Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mozilla into the ground over the last 8-10 years has been like watching a bus accident in slow motion. FirefoxOS anyone? FirefoxOS gets a lot of hate, but I honestly thought it was a pretty good idea. The problem was that it was terribly executed. It’s a bit unclear to me wether that was your point or not.
- cmsj 6y ago
  It might have had some neat technical designs, but it is not a good idea to try and launch an OS into a maturing market, which the smartphone market clearly was by 2013. It never works.
  - detaro 6y ago
    The FirefoxOS fork KaiOS is now installed on 100M+ devices worldwide - mostly as cheap devices below full smartphones.
    - cmsj 6y ago
      1.3 billion Android devices sold last year worldwide.
      - detaro 6y ago
        So, "significant market share in some markets" for KaiOS, given it has 10% the global numbers and is basically not present in EU and US? A thing can be good and successful without being the global leader, unless you want monopolies for everything.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    It worked in India - it was a success. And it was a shock when Mozilla just gave it up. Giving up on an install base of hundreds of millions just when it was taking off...the US is not the only market you know ? Sometimes you need to plough your way through the field to get the bountiful harvest - Mozilla did that and then left the harvest to burn.
Krisando 6y ago
So, I don't really know the context of the stuff you're writing about, if you would please indulge me... > Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mozilla into the ground over the last 8-10 years has been like watching a bus accident in slow motion. I honestly am not aware much of that. > FirefoxOS anyone? I can't tell if you're unhappy they started that project or unhappy they stopped it. I'm guessing you're unhappy, so I'm going to go along with the guys that were involved on that project for the rest of your post. I am curious though, since you seem to know so much about Mozilla driving itself into the ground, do you know the resources that were spent on FirefoxOS? > The only benefit Mozilla now provides is a warning to companies that place how liked and popular employees are over how skilled and hard working they are. I know that Andreas Gal was disliked, but how was he unskilled and what did his position have to do with the nature you're speaking of? > Mozilla has collected such a large group of well behaved and well liked underperformers to an absurd level like no other company in history. This is no more obvious than the woefully under-qualified and perennially under-performing leadership. How did you asses that Andreas Gal was under qualified and under performing? > Someone please explain to me how Mitchell Baker continues to have a job? Mitchell Baker is one of the oldest closely related employees to Netscape, Mozilla etc. She is very much the original culture of company. Her particular focus is the overall business aspect of operating the organisation rather than the technical. The technical work would have been people like Andreas Gal. > How is Mozilla still paying this person millions, yes millions, of dollars? That's not her sallary, that comes from compensation. Compensation is based on looking at what other similarly sized companies, usually in the same sector are paying based on similarly skilled people. Companies do not want to lose their CEOs etc. What might suprise you is that she's being paid at the lower end of the scale, and this is because she's a CEO sourced internally. If Mozilla were to replace her with an external CEO, they would likely end up needing to pay vastly more. The compenstion paid is usually pegged to performance. While the company might have not done well as a whole, there are likely things this person has navgiated the company through that you did not see? But, if you did, please share. > Pocket?! You are going to save Mozilla with a glorified bookmarking app? Mozilla is following a common technique to help bring stability to the company when one or more revenue stream starts struggling or drying up -- It is diversifying income. Mozilla appears to be a very R&D sort of company, so they seem to be doing what you see companies like Microsoft Garage or Alphabet do and try to create their own 'start ups' without the company bit to try to innovate new products. Hence where FirefoxOS came from. Many people originally scoffed at the idea of Apple doing a phone.
sjg007 6y ago
Well ChromeOS was successful so you could see Firefox OS as an alternative in the market. They both came out at the same time. There were of course 6 different table/mobile OSes at the time. Maybe it was a difference in execution. Or maybe resources.

nextaccountic 6y ago

> This lay-off is not because of Covid or racism. It is because of the overwhelmingly awful executive leadership at Mozilla. Yeah! They are cutting out key technical employees while not cutting top-level exec salaries. https://twitter.com/lizardlucas42/status/1293232090985705478 https://twitter.com/lizardlucas42/status/1293232090985705478

DangerousPie 6y ago
I never really understand why people ask for things like this. Presumably Mozilla is paying these salaries because that's what they need to pay to hire good people at that level. Why would those people stay at Mozilla if they suddenly had their salary cut? They are probably already making less than they could make in a comparable position elsewhere.
- belorn 6y ago
  In comparison, how much are eff paying Cindy Cohn to be CEO?
  - morelisp 6y ago
    If I read the 990 right, 257500. This is 2x the lowest officer salary and 30% higher than the second-highest. By comparison Mitchell is 8x the second-highest officer and 17x the lowest. There may be more comparable salaries at MoCo, but those are not on the 990s.
- dtech 6y ago
  Because people feel like C-level compensation is way too high, and people feel this is disconnected from actual performance. C-level compensation has risen way, way faster in the last decades than general employee compensation [1]. It doesn't change because upper management is all in the "cult", and there's no incentive to lower salaries. If all programmers (or any other profession) were in charge of their own salaries, I'd suspect something similar happening with people rewarding each other more and more compensation while pointing at other companies to justify it. [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
  - DangerousPie 6y ago
    I can see how one can argue that C-level compensation is too high (although there are also good arguments against that) but surely you can't expect Mozilla to solve this problem by themselves? If Mozilla cuts C-level salaries while the rest of the industry doesn't then why would any of them keep working for Mozilla?
    - dtech 6y ago
      This is a crap argument. Every company/NGO can use that and it doesn't solve the problem. Mozilla as a self-proclaimed altruistic ideologically-driven org should lead by example. If the current CEO, whom from the outside is not doing a great job, is not willing to. You find a different CEO. I am not convinced that no one wants to do the job for $500k instead of $2.5m. Whether that person would be good/bad/worse is pure speculation, but it's not like organizations are taking the chance.
      - mgkimsal 6y ago
        "Whether that person would be good/bad/worse is pure speculation" they'd probably have to have at least a negative $2m impact before it mattered right? revenue on its own may not even be the best measure, if the revenue comes via methods that conflict with the larger ideology. I don't know if Mozilla has that conflict with itself or not. Your point is accurate though, and I've held the same views for a while now. This sort of thinking would seem to dictate that the next Mozilla CEO will need to come in at around $2.5m - that's been defined as the floor now. Regardless of how well that person executes, they've got that base. And... you can't really judge them after 3 months. You'd need to give them a year to make a 'real' assessment... and you've just spent that money on someone, regardless of outcome.
LockAndLol 6y ago
An NGO has execs with salaries >1M??? How is that still an NGO?
- whiddershins 6y ago
  If you aren’t being sarcastic ... go research NGOs.
  - kindatrue 6y ago
    Fascinating stuff! https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/credit-cards/15-highet-paid-charity-ceos-12807750 https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/credit-cards/15-h...
- smsm42 6y ago
  NGO or non-profit doesn't mean they took a vow of poverty. It means the corporation does not distribute profits to shareholders (and may be exempt of some income taxes). It still can be loaded with money, and many NGOs are.
devy 6y ago
The current CEO of Mozilla Corporation and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation (the parent organization of Mozilla Corporation) earned a total compensation of $2,458,350 [1] on a $436 million company revenue on 2018, or half a percent of the company's revenue. I can't find 2019 stats, but on a company that's not doing well, CEO's comp seems high. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#cite_note-14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#cite_note-14
- endemic 6y ago
  I can't think of a good reason why Mitchell Baker should keep her job. I'm fine with competitive executive compensation, but what has she done other than lay off the people doing the work?
  - waheoo 6y ago
    How else do you justify their salary. Increasing revenue? please.
    - devy 6y ago
      > Increasing revenue? Yes. Mozilla Corporation, The wholly owned subsidiary of Non-profit Mozilla Foundation, is a for-profit organization and taxable entity. [1] For any for-profit organization, increasing profit is one of the major responsibility of the CEO. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
      - stingraycharles 6y ago
        I think the parent means that she failed at this. At the very least, her salary went up while Firefox market share went down.
        waheoo 6y ago
        No I meant that I order to justify her salary she needs to either increase profits or reduce costs. Looks like she went with reducing costs ...

josteink 6y ago

> Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mozilla into the ground over the last 8-10 years has been like watching a bus accident in slow motion. FirefoxOS anyone? FirefoxOS gets a lot of hate, but I honestly thought it was a pretty good idea. The problem was that it was terribly executed. It’s a bit unclear to me wether that was your point or not.

cmsj 6y ago
It might have had some neat technical designs, but it is not a good idea to try and launch an OS into a maturing market, which the smartphone market clearly was by 2013. It never works.
- detaro 6y ago
  The FirefoxOS fork KaiOS is now installed on 100M+ devices worldwide - mostly as cheap devices below full smartphones.
  - cmsj 6y ago
    1.3 billion Android devices sold last year worldwide.
    - detaro 6y ago
      So, "significant market share in some markets" for KaiOS, given it has 10% the global numbers and is basically not present in EU and US? A thing can be good and successful without being the global leader, unless you want monopolies for everything.
- lenkite 6y ago
  It worked in India - it was a success. And it was a shock when Mozilla just gave it up. Giving up on an install base of hundreds of millions just when it was taking off...the US is not the only market you know ? Sometimes you need to plough your way through the field to get the bountiful harvest - Mozilla did that and then left the harvest to burn.

Krisando 6y ago

So, I don't really know the context of the stuff you're writing about, if you would please indulge me... > Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mozilla into the ground over the last 8-10 years has been like watching a bus accident in slow motion. I honestly am not aware much of that. > FirefoxOS anyone? I can't tell if you're unhappy they started that project or unhappy they stopped it. I'm guessing you're unhappy, so I'm going to go along with the guys that were involved on that project for the rest of your post. I am curious though, since you seem to know so much about Mozilla driving itself into the ground, do you know the resources that were spent on FirefoxOS? > The only benefit Mozilla now provides is a warning to companies that place how liked and popular employees are over how skilled and hard working they are. I know that Andreas Gal was disliked, but how was he unskilled and what did his position have to do with the nature you're speaking of? > Mozilla has collected such a large group of well behaved and well liked underperformers to an absurd level like no other company in history. This is no more obvious than the woefully under-qualified and perennially under-performing leadership. How did you asses that Andreas Gal was under qualified and under performing? > Someone please explain to me how Mitchell Baker continues to have a job? Mitchell Baker is one of the oldest closely related employees to Netscape, Mozilla etc. She is very much the original culture of company. Her particular focus is the overall business aspect of operating the organisation rather than the technical. The technical work would have been people like Andreas Gal. > How is Mozilla still paying this person millions, yes millions, of dollars? That's not her sallary, that comes from compensation. Compensation is based on looking at what other similarly sized companies, usually in the same sector are paying based on similarly skilled people. Companies do not want to lose their CEOs etc. What might suprise you is that she's being paid at the lower end of the scale, and this is because she's a CEO sourced internally. If Mozilla were to replace her with an external CEO, they would likely end up needing to pay vastly more. The compenstion paid is usually pegged to performance. While the company might have not done well as a whole, there are likely things this person has navgiated the company through that you did not see? But, if you did, please share. > Pocket?! You are going to save Mozilla with a glorified bookmarking app? Mozilla is following a common technique to help bring stability to the company when one or more revenue stream starts struggling or drying up -- It is diversifying income. Mozilla appears to be a very R&D sort of company, so they seem to be doing what you see companies like Microsoft Garage or Alphabet do and try to create their own 'start ups' without the company bit to try to innovate new products. Hence where FirefoxOS came from. Many people originally scoffed at the idea of Apple doing a phone.

sjg007 6y ago

Well ChromeOS was successful so you could see Firefox OS as an alternative in the market. They both came out at the same time. There were of course 6 different table/mobile OSes at the time. Maybe it was a difference in execution. Or maybe resources.