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> As a non-profit open-source operation, Mozilla spends as much as it receives; its 2018 staffing bill was $286m I'd sleep easier if Mozilla saved some cash fo

> As a non-profit open-source operation, Mozilla spends as much as it receives; its 2018 staffing bill was $286m I'd sleep easier if Mozilla saved some cash for a rainy day. Is there really no way to maintain a browser with less than a quarter billion dollars a year?

teraku 6y ago
In the comments of the article one person mentions that libre offices runs on a little less than a million a year. I'd argue that Mozilla has a few more repos that need mending (i.e. Rust, Servo, MDN, ...) but if you pay an average of 100k$ salary and have like 10 techpeople per team plus some management/community management/project management you could do a rough estimate of <10 core teams * 15 people * 100k$/year + 5m$ for infrastructure/rent == 20m$>. Even if you pay your CEO 2,5m$ afterwards, you'd still have loads of money left. Not sure where all of it goes. And I'm a bit reluctant to just say "bad management" in terms of money allocation. Although I do hate this cut in workforce and feel like it's the worst management decision in tech in recent history.
- esrauch 6y ago
  They have somewhere around 750 employees still after the layoffs; it's hard to understand your comment that that both says they should have 150 employees but reducing their teams is a bad decision.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- xxs 6y ago
  single revenue stream gotta be the hallmark of bad magenement. Not just that, but tied to your direct competitor.
- The_Colonel 6y ago
  > In the comments of the article one person mentions that libre offices runs on a little less than a million a year. That's just the foundation budget. It doesn't include all the salaries of people working on the project employed by commercial companies (Collabora etc.)
Malic 6y ago
The Mars Pathfinder mission cost slightly less than that - so it costs more every year to develop/maintain/promote a web browser than it costs to go to another planet?
- ahelwer 6y ago
  If you start doing these sorts of comparisons between publicly-funded science and industry this isn't even in the same ballpark, or even league, of the most depressing comparisons you could make.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Comparisons across different environments are not always productive. Pathfinder has a well defined scope, a single platform to run on, no adversaries at runtime, full time hardware team to talk to, likely no interaction with third party software. It's pretty much the complete opposite of a browser.
- freshsqueeze 6y ago
  They could have bought Whatsapp and Instagram with their spend over the last few years.
coffeefirst 6y ago
Yeah, I was ready to donate out of a firm belief that multiple browsers and MDN are essential to the open web, but... what are they doing? That number is absolutely bonkers, and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t make a clear public statement about the future of Firefox given how much confusion there’s been.
- calcifer 6y ago
  Their financials are public and are a simple search away. They already have a 9 figure rainy day fund.
pjmlp 6y ago
This week Google just brought this out, https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/introducing-chrome-os-dev.html https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/introducing-chrome... Now with Google and Microsoft collaborating even more with PWA friendly features, the cash for a rainy day might not be of much help. Isn't ironic, that after loosing PNaCL vs asm.js battle, Google is actually the main driver on WebAssembly?
paul_f 6y ago
Apparently Mozilla has found a way, and is laying off a bunchy of people as a result
freshsqueeze 6y ago
They had $500M in the bank. The whole "COVID affected our revenue" was a made up lie to save face. Every company has been using COVID as an excuse to do a lay off they've been meaning to do. You can maintain a browser for that cash (or buy Instagram or Whatsapp). But you can't maintain a bunch of execs siphoning money into the pockets while the org runs like a headless chicken.

teraku 6y ago

In the comments of the article one person mentions that libre offices runs on a little less than a million a year. I'd argue that Mozilla has a few more repos that need mending (i.e. Rust, Servo, MDN, ...) but if you pay an average of 100k$ salary and have like 10 techpeople per team plus some management/community management/project management you could do a rough estimate of <10 core teams * 15 people * 100k$/year + 5m$ for infrastructure/rent == 20m$>. Even if you pay your CEO 2,5m$ afterwards, you'd still have loads of money left. Not sure where all of it goes. And I'm a bit reluctant to just say "bad management" in terms of money allocation. Although I do hate this cut in workforce and feel like it's the worst management decision in tech in recent history.

esrauch 6y ago
They have somewhere around 750 employees still after the layoffs; it's hard to understand your comment that that both says they should have 150 employees but reducing their teams is a bad decision.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
xxs 6y ago
single revenue stream gotta be the hallmark of bad magenement. Not just that, but tied to your direct competitor.
The_Colonel 6y ago
> In the comments of the article one person mentions that libre offices runs on a little less than a million a year. That's just the foundation budget. It doesn't include all the salaries of people working on the project employed by commercial companies (Collabora etc.)

Malic 6y ago

The Mars Pathfinder mission cost slightly less than that - so it costs more every year to develop/maintain/promote a web browser than it costs to go to another planet?

ahelwer 6y ago
If you start doing these sorts of comparisons between publicly-funded science and industry this isn't even in the same ballpark, or even league, of the most depressing comparisons you could make.
viraptor 6y ago
Comparisons across different environments are not always productive. Pathfinder has a well defined scope, a single platform to run on, no adversaries at runtime, full time hardware team to talk to, likely no interaction with third party software. It's pretty much the complete opposite of a browser.
freshsqueeze 6y ago
They could have bought Whatsapp and Instagram with their spend over the last few years.

coffeefirst 6y ago

Yeah, I was ready to donate out of a firm belief that multiple browsers and MDN are essential to the open web, but... what are they doing? That number is absolutely bonkers, and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t make a clear public statement about the future of Firefox given how much confusion there’s been.

calcifer 6y ago
Their financials are public and are a simple search away. They already have a 9 figure rainy day fund.

pjmlp 6y ago

This week Google just brought this out, https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/introducing-chrome-os-dev.html https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/introducing-chrome... Now with Google and Microsoft collaborating even more with PWA friendly features, the cash for a rainy day might not be of much help. Isn't ironic, that after loosing PNaCL vs asm.js battle, Google is actually the main driver on WebAssembly?

paul_f 6y ago

Apparently Mozilla has found a way, and is laying off a bunchy of people as a result

freshsqueeze 6y ago

They had $500M in the bank. The whole "COVID affected our revenue" was a made up lie to save face. Every company has been using COVID as an excuse to do a lay off they've been meaning to do. You can maintain a browser for that cash (or buy Instagram or Whatsapp). But you can't maintain a bunch of execs siphoning money into the pockets while the org runs like a headless chicken.