7 ms·
I've been critical of Mozilla for a long time, and Mitchell has not been a good leader for the last ~10 years or so. Having said that, Mitchell was instrumenta
by username1228023 3y ago
I've been critical of Mozilla for a long time, and Mitchell has not been a good leader for the last ~10 years or so.
Having said that, Mitchell was instrumental to several very important things, not all of them in the distant past. She also went years taking annual salary lower than she probably should have been taking. It frankly wouldn't be unreasonable to grant her lifetime emeritus status that comes with a no-strings-attached $1–2 million annual salary to sit on her hands and do nothing. (I do think that $7 million per year is pretty gross, though, especially given the current "state of Mozilla".)
Having said that, $7 million for a CEO who isn't earning it really isn't Mozilla's biggest problem, and it's not even its biggest financial problem. If you really want to be critical of its spending, consider this:
The annual budget for marketing and branding every year falls between $30 and $60 million. Per year. This is Mozilla. Empirically, it may as well not even have a marketing department.
When Chrome really started eating into Firefox marketshare 10+ years ago, one of the things that Mozilla folks used to complain about (a lot) is that Chrome's effective* marketing budget was higher* than Mozilla's total budget—browser development and other software eng. included. The perverse thing is that the same is true of Mozilla: you could take its annual marketing budget, pour it into a different org that works on a different browser, and what you could get out of it is an independent browser development company. What's more is that you could without too much difficulty get that company not only to profitable status in pretty short order (given that kind of budget), but get it to usage share that matches Firefox's own (given how low that is). This would take something like 3, 4, 5 years max, provided you have competent leadership.
That's the sort of profligate spending and a lot of other poor decisionmaking at Mozilla that really needs to be addressed if Mozilla is going to turn around. (I have given up hope that this is ever going to happen. I expect it not to.) People hardly talk about this aspect of the business, however—instead focusing on how much Mitchell is getting paid, which, to reiterate, is not in any sense the biggest problem that Mozilla is facing.
-- former Mozillian
- laweijfmvo 3y ago> She also went years taking annual salary lower than she probably should have been taking. It frankly wouldn't be unreasonable to grant her lifetime emeritus status that comes with a no-strings-attached $1–2 million annual salary to sit on her hands and do nothing. Sorry, what? She was underpaid for a few years, so should get a couple mil forever now? Can you at least list out the "several important things?"
- kbrosnan 3y agoIt is closer to 20 years. She was a founding member of Mozilla. Look back at the early financial statements, in a vacuum a few 100k to several 100k sounds like a lot. When you compare it to other executives in the Bay Area or the US she was significantly under paid compared to peers. Especially when considering stock options. What would it cost Mozilla to hire someone else? Before someone here says that they would be the CEO for less money than Mitchell. Can you get an appointment with the vice president of search at Google and Microsoft? Could you call their bosses and get though?
- teg4n_ 3y agoIf they were the CEO of Mozilla they would because that’s the whole point of talking to them.
- iraqmtpizza 3y agoEither I or Adam Sandler could get an appointment with the VP of search at any company in the world if we were CEO of literally Mozilla
- FactKnower69 3y ago>Before someone here says that they would be the CEO for less money than Michael. Can you get an appointment with the vice president of search at Google and Microsoft? Could you call their bosses and get though? I'm sorry? My entire life I've been told that CEOs make 1000x as much money as me for golfing and writing a couple emails a week because they're genius Ubermenschen whose illuminating strategic insights add orders of magnitude more value than my measly toil, but you're telling me it's actually because other executives are willing to take cold calls from them? That's why?
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y agoIMO it’s mostly because it’s a miserable job that few would be willing to do. I at least wouldn’t, no matter how many millions they throw at me - even disregarding all the career ladder climbing that is needed to be considered for such a role in the first place.
- freedomben 3y agoMay I ask what you did at Mozilla? i.e. were you an engineer on Firefox?
- ksjskskskkk 3y agomozillian usually means mamagers. unless they are really old timers.
- jancsika 3y ago> What's more is that you could without too much difficulty get that company not only to profitable status in pretty short order (given that kind of budget), but get it to usage share that matches Firefox's own (given how low that is). This would take something like 3, 4, 5 years max, provided you have competent leadership. Is your claim that this other browser company would ship an open source browser that is a) gpu-accelerated, b) cross-platform, and c) render Youtube, Tiktok, Reddit, bank websites et al. correctly, and be used by millions of people?