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I'm surprised I had to scroll so far down to find a reasonable comment that did not immediately insult Mitchell Baker. I'm no fan of Baker, but the least we ca

I'm surprised I had to scroll so far down to find a reasonable comment that did not immediately insult Mitchell Baker. I'm no fan of Baker, but the least we can do is wish her best wishes and hope for a great future for all parties involved. I didn't like her when she was CEO at Mozilla, I don't like her anymore now that she isn't CEO at Mozilla but that doesn't mean I have to resort to shallow attacks on her character. I expect more from HN. Edit: Corrected mistake about Baker no longer being at Mozilla. Thanks to @M2Ys4U.

M2Ys4U 3y ago
She's not leaving Mozilla, she's returning to her old position of Executive Chair
- subtra3t 3y ago
  Sorry, my bad. Thanks for correcting, I've edited my comment.
pbhjpbhj 3y ago
[flagged]
- samth 3y ago
  The idea that Mitchell Baker "insinuated herself" into Mozilla is ridiculous. She was an early Netscape employee, one of the original creators of the Mozilla project, and a founder of the Mozilla Foundation.
- sgift 3y ago
  Uh yeah .. Michelle Baker, who is one of the founders of Mozilla, the writer of the MPL and who played a role (for a time as the volunteer general manager of the mozilla org, then later again as an employee) in everything from Mozillas rise to - unfortunately - now its decline by being part of the org had "insinuated" herself into Mozilla. You obviously lack the knowledge about Baker and Mozilla to have any business making statements on this topic. (If you wanna tell me that Michelle Baker recognized before mozilla.org even existed that it will have a meteoric rise, that the person who would have been CEO instead of her took himself out of the race and that that would allow her to make millions as CEO of Mozilla, all I can say is: I doubt that she has a crystal ball that good.)
  - manicennui 3y ago
    A lawyer working for a large organization wrote a license that nobody needed or wanted. Amazing.
    - _kwef 3y ago
      See [1]. There very clearly are many people who wish to use the MPL. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License#Notable_users https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License#Notable...
    - filmgirlcw 3y ago
      She is literally a co-founder of the project, foundation and corporation, was the original CEO of the corporation (before stepping down in 2008 before coming back in 2019 as CEO) and has been executive chairwoman of the board for both the foundation and corporation for as long as Mozilla has existed, so you can call her a bad CEO, but diminishing her as “a lawyer working for a large organization” is pretty dismissive for a person who was one of the first lawyers for what became a large corporation (she joined Netscape in 1994 IIRC), co-founded the open source project, led that open source project at AOL, continued to run the open source project after AOL laid her off, and is the person who is probably more than any other figure, directly responsible for the charitable organization even existing to begin with. I’m not going to argue that Baker was a good CEO, because I honestly don’t know. And I won’t say that Firefox’s languishing isn’t in some ways a reflection of her leadership because she’s been executive chairwoman of the foundation (which the corporation reports to) basically since its inception, but she’s also for better or worse, synonymous with Mozilla. You don’t have Mozilla in any form without her and she’s been there from the beginning. You don’t have to like her, but this attempt at diminishing her role as a foundational leader of Mozilla is off base and weird.
  - Chaosvex 3y ago
    Not the best look to be telling other people that they aren't positioned to make comments on the topic when you repeatedly get their name wrong.
- subtra3t 3y ago
  > Are you sure that what you're calling "shallow attacks" aren't just statements of truth that show someone to be an awful person? I believe that is something that can only be said by Baker, or people who know her sufficiently well. I assume most of the commentors here who are criticising Baker do not fall in either of those categories.
littlestymaar 3y ago
No. She isn't entitled any “best whishes” or respect whatsoever when she's been draining Mozilla's money straight to her own pocket “to cover the needs of her family”. Parasitic behavior deserves shaming, that's it.
- subtra3t 3y ago
  I don't believe that her past actions need to be taken into consideration when wishing her the very best for the future. This is slightly unrelated to the point I was trying to make, but I don't think us commentors are entitled to make passes at her character or doubt her motives. Perhaps from your position it seems like an objective fact that Baker was engaging in morally dubious acts (I personally don't think so) but that still doesn't give you (or any of us!) a right to judge her. We do not know her personally so I don't think we have any right to shame her at all. That's just my opinion, I know its controversial, feel free to argue. Argue is the wrond word there, it makes it seem like I'm silently judging you from a higher pedestal (though I suppose this entire comment gives off that impression) but if you have any questions feel free to ask me. Again this makes it seem like I'm in a position of superiority, I don't know of a better way to phrase it.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  I hope people are less judgmental and more compassionate toward my and your errors. Shaming, IME and in my belief, is a toxic act in service of the attacker; it makes the situation worse, and even the attacker feels worse and is degraded (though they feel powerful).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - manicennui 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > Get a fucking grip. Is that intended to be persuasive? Intimidating? Does it make the point stronger or weaker? Are we wiser for having read it? The unrestrained acting out is not reserved for Mitchell Baker.
faeriechangling 3y ago
Hard for a community of devs to sympathize with a leader who did not admit to their own incompetence and instead of stepping down fired 250 devs while giving herself a raise. She was simply a parasite and her character is being attacked because her character is fucking awful. With enough money for her family to live comfortably on for eons she fucked with hundreds of lives while driving a business into the ground. What I don’t understand is people’s blind worship of the upper class and their entitlement to firing hundreds of people while boosting their salary while being incompetent and how they deserve to have nice things said about them when they leave the company they exploited.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- slily 3y ago
  I agree, and I'm not one to believe that a CEO should be paid peanuts for the level of responsibility and time commitment it takes to be in that position, but that's assuming the CEO is actually taking responsibility for the performance of the company. If goals are repeatedly not being met the CEO should be the first to take responsibility and take a pay cut or fuck off. If the United States value merit, incompetent CEOs should be held to a higher standard than a rank-and-file employee.
the_overseer 3y ago
[flagged]
executesorder66 3y ago
> but the least we can do is wish her best wishes I wonder how many times in a row it would take of you being fired by the CEO who completely mismanaged the company, while massively increasing their own salary multiple times, before you stop wishing them well. In fact maybe the problem is that you are wishing her well. She's exploited other people enough to be doing well enough on her own. She doesn't need anyone to wish her well. Maybe the least she deserves is to not be doing well at other people's expense. What about those people? Being nice isn't always the right answer. When people do bad things, there should be negative consequences for them, otherwise that signals to them that their behavior was appropriate. It wasn't. You are doing the morally wrong thing by wishing her well.

M2Ys4U 3y ago

She's not leaving Mozilla, she's returning to her old position of Executive Chair

subtra3t 3y ago
Sorry, my bad. Thanks for correcting, I've edited my comment.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago

[flagged]

samth 3y ago
The idea that Mitchell Baker "insinuated herself" into Mozilla is ridiculous. She was an early Netscape employee, one of the original creators of the Mozilla project, and a founder of the Mozilla Foundation.
sgift 3y ago
Uh yeah .. Michelle Baker, who is one of the founders of Mozilla, the writer of the MPL and who played a role (for a time as the volunteer general manager of the mozilla org, then later again as an employee) in everything from Mozillas rise to - unfortunately - now its decline by being part of the org had "insinuated" herself into Mozilla. You obviously lack the knowledge about Baker and Mozilla to have any business making statements on this topic. (If you wanna tell me that Michelle Baker recognized before mozilla.org even existed that it will have a meteoric rise, that the person who would have been CEO instead of her took himself out of the race and that that would allow her to make millions as CEO of Mozilla, all I can say is: I doubt that she has a crystal ball that good.)
- manicennui 3y ago
  A lawyer working for a large organization wrote a license that nobody needed or wanted. Amazing.
  - _kwef 3y ago
    See [1]. There very clearly are many people who wish to use the MPL. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License#Notable_users https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Public_License#Notable...
  - filmgirlcw 3y ago
    She is literally a co-founder of the project, foundation and corporation, was the original CEO of the corporation (before stepping down in 2008 before coming back in 2019 as CEO) and has been executive chairwoman of the board for both the foundation and corporation for as long as Mozilla has existed, so you can call her a bad CEO, but diminishing her as “a lawyer working for a large organization” is pretty dismissive for a person who was one of the first lawyers for what became a large corporation (she joined Netscape in 1994 IIRC), co-founded the open source project, led that open source project at AOL, continued to run the open source project after AOL laid her off, and is the person who is probably more than any other figure, directly responsible for the charitable organization even existing to begin with. I’m not going to argue that Baker was a good CEO, because I honestly don’t know. And I won’t say that Firefox’s languishing isn’t in some ways a reflection of her leadership because she’s been executive chairwoman of the foundation (which the corporation reports to) basically since its inception, but she’s also for better or worse, synonymous with Mozilla. You don’t have Mozilla in any form without her and she’s been there from the beginning. You don’t have to like her, but this attempt at diminishing her role as a foundational leader of Mozilla is off base and weird.
- Chaosvex 3y ago
  Not the best look to be telling other people that they aren't positioned to make comments on the topic when you repeatedly get their name wrong.
subtra3t 3y ago
> Are you sure that what you're calling "shallow attacks" aren't just statements of truth that show someone to be an awful person? I believe that is something that can only be said by Baker, or people who know her sufficiently well. I assume most of the commentors here who are criticising Baker do not fall in either of those categories.

littlestymaar 3y ago

No. She isn't entitled any “best whishes” or respect whatsoever when she's been draining Mozilla's money straight to her own pocket “to cover the needs of her family”. Parasitic behavior deserves shaming, that's it.

subtra3t 3y ago
I don't believe that her past actions need to be taken into consideration when wishing her the very best for the future. This is slightly unrelated to the point I was trying to make, but I don't think us commentors are entitled to make passes at her character or doubt her motives. Perhaps from your position it seems like an objective fact that Baker was engaging in morally dubious acts (I personally don't think so) but that still doesn't give you (or any of us!) a right to judge her. We do not know her personally so I don't think we have any right to shame her at all. That's just my opinion, I know its controversial, feel free to argue. Argue is the wrond word there, it makes it seem like I'm silently judging you from a higher pedestal (though I suppose this entire comment gives off that impression) but if you have any questions feel free to ask me. Again this makes it seem like I'm in a position of superiority, I don't know of a better way to phrase it.
wolverine876 3y ago
I hope people are less judgmental and more compassionate toward my and your errors. Shaming, IME and in my belief, is a toxic act in service of the attacker; it makes the situation worse, and even the attacker feels worse and is degraded (though they feel powerful).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- manicennui 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > Get a fucking grip. Is that intended to be persuasive? Intimidating? Does it make the point stronger or weaker? Are we wiser for having read it? The unrestrained acting out is not reserved for Mitchell Baker.

faeriechangling 3y ago

Hard for a community of devs to sympathize with a leader who did not admit to their own incompetence and instead of stepping down fired 250 devs while giving herself a raise. She was simply a parasite and her character is being attacked because her character is fucking awful. With enough money for her family to live comfortably on for eons she fucked with hundreds of lives while driving a business into the ground. What I don’t understand is people’s blind worship of the upper class and their entitlement to firing hundreds of people while boosting their salary while being incompetent and how they deserve to have nice things said about them when they leave the company they exploited.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
slily 3y ago
I agree, and I'm not one to believe that a CEO should be paid peanuts for the level of responsibility and time commitment it takes to be in that position, but that's assuming the CEO is actually taking responsibility for the performance of the company. If goals are repeatedly not being met the CEO should be the first to take responsibility and take a pay cut or fuck off. If the United States value merit, incompetent CEOs should be held to a higher standard than a rank-and-file employee.

the_overseer 3y ago

[flagged]

executesorder66 3y ago

> but the least we can do is wish her best wishes I wonder how many times in a row it would take of you being fired by the CEO who completely mismanaged the company, while massively increasing their own salary multiple times, before you stop wishing them well. In fact maybe the problem is that you are wishing her well. She's exploited other people enough to be doing well enough on her own. She doesn't need anyone to wish her well. Maybe the least she deserves is to not be doing well at other people's expense. What about those people? Being nice isn't always the right answer. When people do bad things, there should be negative consequences for them, otherwise that signals to them that their behavior was appropriate. It wasn't. You are doing the morally wrong thing by wishing her well.