5 ms·

A better CEO would not be cheaper, particularly considering that whoever takes the job would be tasked with saving a dying product. High salary and a golden pa

A better CEO would not be cheaper, particularly considering that whoever takes the job would be tasked with saving a dying product. High salary and a golden parachute would be required to attract anyone good enough to succeed.

freeopinion 5y ago
I think Mozilla and Firefox are cherished by a lot of people who would like to see them thrive. But I think if given a choice, most of those people would prioritize the survival of a viable competitive web browser. The name of the product and the sponsor of the product are less important. So a related question might be, "What would it take for a Firefox fork to succeed?" If you think the CEO of Mozilla is a cancer, a fork solves that issue. Obviously, there are a lot more concerns than just the CEO. So, what else would a viable fork need? In the end, Mozilla could implement any measures that would work for the fork, and probably do so easier. So answer the question for the fork, and you've answered the question for Mozilla.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  A fork in no way solves this because you can't for the devs who mozilla is paying. Firefox is a huge project requiring devs with lots of experience in the technology who also like to be compensated. You can't fork firefox, you have to change the leadership or nothing else will change.
  - freeopinion 5y ago
    Sure. Bullet point #1: Funding. Next?
    - account42 5y ago
      It's related to funding, but recognition is really important. Actually forking (as opposed to the GitHub fork button) is generally seen to be hostile and and will split the community (see e.g. ffmpeg vs. libav). This means that getting a fork to succeed is much harder than it would have been for the original project. For example if the Mozilla foundation went after government grants and donations for funding Firefox instead of trying to monetize the browser they'd probably have much more success than any unproven fork could ever dream for.
- StillBored 5y ago
  Well a large part of the problem with a fork is that you don't see a lot of random drive by contributions. As a possible contributor myself a couple times, firefox is a development nightmare because it doesn't have a good autoconfig system that lets one download the code and start being productive quickly. Then like chrome, i'm betting most people can't actually built it in reasonable time on their laptops since it burns a good 64 core machine with 128G of ram for a hour or two. Screw up said configuration, and your in for another rebuild loop. It can take days just to get a working development environment.
  - freeopinion 5y ago
    And these are what is holding Firefox back?
    - StillBored 5y ago
      No, that is one the problems you have to solve before you can have a successful fork unless you happen to have a few million a year coming in to compete with the main branch. I've been known to waste a weekend or two a year working on open source projects. These though generally are small things that scratch and itch for fix a bug. I don't work on projects where it takes a month+ of weekends just to get a working dev environment. I don't think that's unusual, you have to pay people to put up with that kind of pain.
pstuart 5y ago
Really? This isn't GM -- it's a web browser. An important one, but even a paltry $1M should be enough to draw in the right talent.
- twblalock 5y ago
  $1m is senior engineering manager compensation in the valley at several companies just a short drive away from Mozilla’s offices. It’s far below CEO compensation. Anyone who is capable of succeeding as the CEO of Mozilla would be giving up millions of dollars they could easily make elsewhere in the valley if they took only $1m as their comp.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    "Capable of succeeding" meaning what? If you switch to a normal manager and suddenly save the company 2 million a year, and they stop making the current trend of decisions, that sounds like a win-win. CEOs aren't magical rarities.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    So? Not the entire world is US-based. Tech salaries in USD are way out of whack compared to elsewhere. I also bet that for the type of challenges facing Firefox and with my proposed reforms, a motivated senior engineer who knows what they are doing would be just as good or better compared to a standard CEO.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - freeopinion 5y ago
    Sounds perfect. Any up and coming CEO wannabe could take the Mozilla job to prove they've got the chops. Then, after turning things around, they could ride off into the sunset at any of those other corps. Everybody wins.
  - ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
    which companies are paying 1m to managers?
nus07 5y ago
Someone visionary and humble like Sundar or Satya might work. Preferably an engineer or engineer-minded rather than a lawyer or MBA.
- Croftengea 5y ago
  One doesn't have to look too far. Bring Jamie back! :)
- twblalock 5y ago
  How much money do you think a Sundar or Satya-type person would be willing to accept? Certainly not as little as the current Mozilla CEO is being paid!
autoexec 5y ago
> High salary and a golden parachute would be required to attract anyone good enough to succeed. I'm not sure if the best way to get someone to save a dying product is a golden parachute which rewards them for running it straight into the ground. You have to make sure they're not risking everything to keep Firefox going, but ideally they'd have some skin in the game so they don't have an incentive to just loot whatever they can until it dies before sailing away from the burning wreak with even more money.
- twblalock 5y ago
  It's not a reward for failure, it's an insurance policy. Here's a CEO job offer: take on a nearly impossible task, for a salary that is far below the market rate. If you fail (and you probably will!) it might damage your career and make it harder for you to find another job. If you succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a lot of money. What kind of executive would accept an offer like that? A golden parachute is the insurance policy: it says to the candidate, we know this is a nearly impossible task, and it might damage your career if you fail, so we will guarantee you some money if you fail in order to compensate you for taking on that risk.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    I would really love to hear even one example of a CEO's career being damaged by failure in any material way. Meanwhile, people for whom income is literally making the difference between getting food on the table and not get 2 weeks at best, often nothing at all. I mean, I'm actually sympathetic to the idea that no one should take a job unless it has absolutely zero risk of ruining them financially if they fail at it, but it's pretty clear that this is a benefit only extended to very few people who don't really need it.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    > Here's a CEO job offer: take on a nearly impossible task, for a salary that is far below the market rate. If you fail (and you probably will!) it might damage your career and make it harder for you to find another job. If you succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a lot of money. Keeping in mind that "below market rate" is still "retirement within a few years at the Mozilla CEO's rate. So even if your career were damaged, and it's easy to not have it damaged, you can retire after like 3 years. That's a fine insurance policy. > If you succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a lot of money. Of course you'll get a lot of money. 1. You can give yourself a raise. If the Moz CEO had come in and we saw market share increasing do you think anyone would give a shit about increasing their pay? The issue is it's tanking and they laid off a ton of people at the same time they took a huge pay raise. 2. Executives are compensated with stock. Company does well, your stock goes up.

freeopinion 5y ago

I think Mozilla and Firefox are cherished by a lot of people who would like to see them thrive. But I think if given a choice, most of those people would prioritize the survival of a viable competitive web browser. The name of the product and the sponsor of the product are less important. So a related question might be, "What would it take for a Firefox fork to succeed?" If you think the CEO of Mozilla is a cancer, a fork solves that issue. Obviously, there are a lot more concerns than just the CEO. So, what else would a viable fork need? In the end, Mozilla could implement any measures that would work for the fork, and probably do so easier. So answer the question for the fork, and you've answered the question for Mozilla.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
A fork in no way solves this because you can't for the devs who mozilla is paying. Firefox is a huge project requiring devs with lots of experience in the technology who also like to be compensated. You can't fork firefox, you have to change the leadership or nothing else will change.
- freeopinion 5y ago
  Sure. Bullet point #1: Funding. Next?
  - account42 5y ago
    It's related to funding, but recognition is really important. Actually forking (as opposed to the GitHub fork button) is generally seen to be hostile and and will split the community (see e.g. ffmpeg vs. libav). This means that getting a fork to succeed is much harder than it would have been for the original project. For example if the Mozilla foundation went after government grants and donations for funding Firefox instead of trying to monetize the browser they'd probably have much more success than any unproven fork could ever dream for.
StillBored 5y ago
Well a large part of the problem with a fork is that you don't see a lot of random drive by contributions. As a possible contributor myself a couple times, firefox is a development nightmare because it doesn't have a good autoconfig system that lets one download the code and start being productive quickly. Then like chrome, i'm betting most people can't actually built it in reasonable time on their laptops since it burns a good 64 core machine with 128G of ram for a hour or two. Screw up said configuration, and your in for another rebuild loop. It can take days just to get a working development environment.
- freeopinion 5y ago
  And these are what is holding Firefox back?
  - StillBored 5y ago
    No, that is one the problems you have to solve before you can have a successful fork unless you happen to have a few million a year coming in to compete with the main branch. I've been known to waste a weekend or two a year working on open source projects. These though generally are small things that scratch and itch for fix a bug. I don't work on projects where it takes a month+ of weekends just to get a working dev environment. I don't think that's unusual, you have to pay people to put up with that kind of pain.

pstuart 5y ago

Really? This isn't GM -- it's a web browser. An important one, but even a paltry $1M should be enough to draw in the right talent.

twblalock 5y ago
$1m is senior engineering manager compensation in the valley at several companies just a short drive away from Mozilla’s offices. It’s far below CEO compensation. Anyone who is capable of succeeding as the CEO of Mozilla would be giving up millions of dollars they could easily make elsewhere in the valley if they took only $1m as their comp.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  "Capable of succeeding" meaning what? If you switch to a normal manager and suddenly save the company 2 million a year, and they stop making the current trend of decisions, that sounds like a win-win. CEOs aren't magical rarities.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  So? Not the entire world is US-based. Tech salaries in USD are way out of whack compared to elsewhere. I also bet that for the type of challenges facing Firefox and with my proposed reforms, a motivated senior engineer who knows what they are doing would be just as good or better compared to a standard CEO.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- freeopinion 5y ago
  Sounds perfect. Any up and coming CEO wannabe could take the Mozilla job to prove they've got the chops. Then, after turning things around, they could ride off into the sunset at any of those other corps. Everybody wins.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  which companies are paying 1m to managers?

nus07 5y ago

Someone visionary and humble like Sundar or Satya might work. Preferably an engineer or engineer-minded rather than a lawyer or MBA.

Croftengea 5y ago
One doesn't have to look too far. Bring Jamie back! :)
twblalock 5y ago
How much money do you think a Sundar or Satya-type person would be willing to accept? Certainly not as little as the current Mozilla CEO is being paid!

autoexec 5y ago

> High salary and a golden parachute would be required to attract anyone good enough to succeed. I'm not sure if the best way to get someone to save a dying product is a golden parachute which rewards them for running it straight into the ground. You have to make sure they're not risking everything to keep Firefox going, but ideally they'd have some skin in the game so they don't have an incentive to just loot whatever they can until it dies before sailing away from the burning wreak with even more money.

twblalock 5y ago
It's not a reward for failure, it's an insurance policy. Here's a CEO job offer: take on a nearly impossible task, for a salary that is far below the market rate. If you fail (and you probably will!) it might damage your career and make it harder for you to find another job. If you succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a lot of money. What kind of executive would accept an offer like that? A golden parachute is the insurance policy: it says to the candidate, we know this is a nearly impossible task, and it might damage your career if you fail, so we will guarantee you some money if you fail in order to compensate you for taking on that risk.
- stormbrew 5y ago
  I would really love to hear even one example of a CEO's career being damaged by failure in any material way. Meanwhile, people for whom income is literally making the difference between getting food on the table and not get 2 weeks at best, often nothing at all. I mean, I'm actually sympathetic to the idea that no one should take a job unless it has absolutely zero risk of ruining them financially if they fail at it, but it's pretty clear that this is a benefit only extended to very few people who don't really need it.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  > Here's a CEO job offer: take on a nearly impossible task, for a salary that is far below the market rate. If you fail (and you probably will!) it might damage your career and make it harder for you to find another job. If you succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a lot of money. Keeping in mind that "below market rate" is still "retirement within a few years at the Mozilla CEO's rate. So even if your career were damaged, and it's easy to not have it damaged, you can retire after like 3 years. That's a fine insurance policy. > If you succeed, you will get prestige, but you still won't get a lot of money. Of course you'll get a lot of money. 1. You can give yourself a raise. If the Moz CEO had come in and we saw market share increasing do you think anyone would give a shit about increasing their pay? The issue is it's tanking and they laid off a ton of people at the same time they took a huge pay raise. 2. Executives are compensated with stock. Company does well, your stock goes up.