7 ms·

Imagine running a company. That's hard enough. Now imagine your market share is down a ton (and decreasing), and there's no clear way to change that trajectory

Imagine running a company. That's hard enough. Now imagine your market share is down a ton (and decreasing), and there's no clear way to change that trajectory. Then imagine that despite being CEO, you're owned by a non-profit. So, you have a boss, and your boss has different goals than you do. Then imagine attracting and retaining top talent, while not being able to give out equity. Then imagine that your product is free. You can't charge more for it; you give (almost) everything away for free and there's no clear path to monetization. And then imagine that almost all of your money comes from your biggest competitor, and your only lever is to negotiate (from a position of weakness, because they're much bigger) a deal every 3 years in order to keep paying your employees.

Dylan16807 3y ago
That sounds really hard! But I don't see why it needs particularly rare skills. And lots of people do really hard jobs for much much much less money.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > don't see why it needs particularly rare skills I don’t either! But apparently they’re rare. One pays dearly when trying to go cheap, or broaden the pool in seemingly innocuous ways, in executive recruiting. > lots of people do really hard jobs Fortitude is necessary, but by itself insufficient.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > I don’t either! But apparently they’re rare. One pays dearly when trying to go cheap, or broaden the pool in seemingly innocuous ways, in executive recruiting. Do we have good evidence for that, or is it just what the people that hire CEOs tend to think? When I think of disastrous CEOs that I've managed to hear about, they weren't cheap. They got paid huge amounts to cause their disasters.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Do we have good evidence for that, or is it just what the people that hire CEOs tend to think? I think so, and it’s largely in the attrition of start-ups due to executive leadership breaking down. Start-up founders are already a rarefied group; that so many break down or flip out or can’t handle all the balls in the air is telling. (There is plenty of academia on the topic. It doesn’t support massive paydays. But certainly single-digit millions, i.e. life-changing money for someone who may already be rich.) > got paid huge amounts to cause their disasters Look at the state of the company they took over. Golden parachutes are often required to woo top talent to a trash pile because top talent knows the world is stochastic.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        > Look at the state of the company they took over. Yes, I'm specifically thinking of companies that were doing fine when they took over.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      There is the problem. There is evidence a great CEO can make a difference. And if a great CEO wants millions they are worth it. However nobody knows how to tell a great CEO from bad.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - nativeit 3y ago
        That sounds like the old advertising idiom, “Half of all advertising works, but you will never be certain which half,” or something similar anyway. I think there is a very distinct “lightning in a bottle” component to great and/or successful companies. Combinations of effective teams, aligned motivations, good timing, a leader who can identify and leverage all of those elements to great effect, and some X factors that are simply unknowable. That may be just a slightly more nuanced way of saying they’re lucky, but also good fortune in externally changing scenarios is certainly one of those unknown factors. I think the ability to recognize, organize, and effectively leverage all of the elements such that a company is well-positioned if/when the external factors line up in their favor is what defines a great CEO. I think that ability is akin to naturally talented musicians. Most people can, with enough time and effort, learn to play a guitar very well. They still won’t be Jimi Hendrix. The downside is, you can’t force it or fake it (at least not for very long). I think of parallels with the difference between the British and American versions of the TV show “Top Gear” that was being produced in the mid ‘00s. The original British show was the lightning in a bottle, and became one of the most successful TV series on the planet. The lifeless copy they attempted in the US followed the recipe meticulously, and was cringeworthy. (Edit: Missed the word “never” up top)
- ryandrake 3y ago
  The necessary skills are not rare, but the roles are rare so people start to think the skills are rare. I get a lot of grief for this opinion but I think most HN'ers could do the job of "CEO of whatever company they currently work for". It's not rocket science. We have this mythology around CEOs that they are such outlier smart, special, hardworking people, but really it's just that the top of the pyramids contain few people.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Shadow the CEO of a well-run large company around for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't want that job, and I'm not sure I could do it. Always being on-call, and having to constantly context switch and synthesize questionably-accurate material from reports, to make important decisions. (And that's not even broaching the political tasks... which are required, because it's the only way to become and remain CEO)
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Definitely wanting the job is separate from can do the job, although to be honest, I would be happy to get paid $6+ million for the job "Fail to turn around Mozilla". Heck, I'd be willing to do it for 10% of that compensation.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        That's glib. No one is hired to fail, and no one tries to fail. They're hired to try and succeed, and sometimes it doesn't go that way.
        pooper 3y ago
        It is not glib. Here is how I would put it. > I wouldn't want that job. However, with the right team I AM sure I could do it. Remember as a tech lead, if you are heroically writing a lot of code burning the midnight oil, banging out tickets and completing sprints by yourself, you are failing. As a CEO, the more you are doing the more you are failing. This is probably why it is so hard for people like us to he leaders. It is very difficult to delegate and not meddle with things. It is easy to say let go but very hard to actually do so. Remember that even Steve Jobs delegated all operations and supply chain stuff to tim cook. And that's Steve Jobs! We are not Steve Jobs. There is no reason why my manager should make more money than me.
- bawolff 3y ago
  > And lots of people do really hard jobs for much much much less money. I would consider most min wage jobs harder than what i (computer programmer) do. Compensation is often inversely correlated with how shitty the job is.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Hard as in "undesirable" isn't the same as in "the skills to do it are rare", though.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Why would those skills not be rare? How many people do you know that can do all that? I know vanishingly few and I suspect most do too.
fabrice_d 3y ago
Imagine being both the CEO of the corp and the chairwoman of the non profit. Damn! Remember Mitchell killed FirefoxOS (I know you were likely happy about that @gkoberger), and now Mozilla is complaining about not getting level playing access to other OSes. Guess what, when you have no platform, you'll be forever a second class citizen. Baker is a good motivational speaker, but should never have been allowed to made any operational decision.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Technically FirefoxOS is still around: https://www.kaiostech.com/ https://www.kaiostech.com/ . It's now an OS for feature phones. It's no longer owned by Mozilla but they did have a lasting impact, that's what I mean. And many of their throwaway projects have gone that way. For example Firefox VR browser is now Wolvic. https://wolvic.com/en/ https://wolvic.com/en/ . It's the great thing about open source, the work is not lost. But Mozilla had no chance in the real smartphone market. If Microsoft couldn't manage to attract developers with their billions and dedicated hardware, Firefox supplying only the OS and no hardware just had zero chance to make it mainstream. It would have been relegated to the same position as Sailfish: A cool curiosity but not interesting enough for anyone but some hobbyists to develop for. I don't think it was a bad idea trying: At that time the duopoly in the smartphone market was not as firmly established and there were other open projects like Ubuntu as well. They might have attracted a huge party like Samsung (after all, they did go for Tizen in the end!) and things might have worked out differently. But the choice to drop it was inevitable at that point.
  - fabrice_d 3y ago
    FxOS failed commercially because it tried to be a "me too" product, with the same distribution strategy as Android that relies a lot on carriers. For that to work you need to get support from key apps in the carriers markets, and FxOS never managed to get Whatsapp on board. KaiOS got Whatsapp support thanks to shipping in India with a single carrier (Jio) that has a very large user base. Deployment in the rest of the world has been a struggle and the company is not in great shape. All that to say that Mozilla could have kept the lights on for a couple more years and get access to large markets. Hard to predict what would have happened but we certainly would have more diversity in the OS space.
RHSman2 3y ago
Those constraints can be turned into positives depending on your point of view. Imagine what you could do?
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I don't have any insider knowledge but: > your only lever is to negotiate (from a position of weakness, because they're much bigger) a deal every 3 years in order to keep paying your employees. It's entirely possible that Mitchell Baker was responsible for getting hundreds of millions of dollars extra for Firefox when they switched search provider and then back, invoking a clause in their agreement with Yahoo. Which seems like some pretty skilful playing of a bad hand.
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  The fact that they switched from Yahoo after the Yahoo sale to Verizon was announced, and got Yahoo to keep paying them was a great move. I talked to one of the corporate lawyers that worked that deal, and told him it was a genius move.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
palata 3y ago
I think that the "it's paid a lot because it's super hard" is generally a bad excuse. Many things are super hard, many people make a lot of sacrifices to be among the bests at what they do. Yet they don't earn that much. When the thing you are good at is being a CEO (as opposed to, say, being a teacher), then you are very lucky. Because other CEOs before you managed to make it acceptable to earn an indecent salary for just doing a job. Ok, let's say they don't sleep at all, so they can work 2-3x as much as the average people. Are they paid 2-3x more? No! They're paid orders of magnitudes more. That's indecent.
- Denzel 3y ago
  So what solution are you proposing? Right now, you’re simply complaining about a perceived problem without offering any logical argument for an alternative. I do not mean to sound flippant, I’d like to hear what your alternative ideas are.
  - palata 3y ago
    > So what solution are you proposing? To the problem of human beings receiving way too much money for the time they spend doing their job? Easy: crazy taxes. If the company really wants to increase the salary up to some limit, knowing that 95% of that increase will go into taxes, then good for them. Otherwise they can do something else, like increasing other salaries or hiring people. Also if you ask me, there should be laws for the difference between the lowest and the highest salary in a company. I.e. "the highest salary cannot be more than X times the lowest salary". Which means that if the CEO wants to earn more, they need to raise the lowest salaries.
    - gottorf 3y ago
      > there should be laws for the difference between the lowest and the highest salary in a company I'd imagine that at a place like Mozilla (effectively a high-tech nonprofit primarily staffed by white-collar workers), this difference in compensation is actually not that big, compared to, say, a business that hires hourly workers.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
And the whole point is that paying someone 6M means you should be able to figure out how to solve for these problems The idea that nobody possibly could reconcile these issues and yet should still be paid egregiously is absurd

Dylan16807 3y ago

That sounds really hard! But I don't see why it needs particularly rare skills. And lots of people do really hard jobs for much much much less money.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> don't see why it needs particularly rare skills I don’t either! But apparently they’re rare. One pays dearly when trying to go cheap, or broaden the pool in seemingly innocuous ways, in executive recruiting. > lots of people do really hard jobs Fortitude is necessary, but by itself insufficient.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > I don’t either! But apparently they’re rare. One pays dearly when trying to go cheap, or broaden the pool in seemingly innocuous ways, in executive recruiting. Do we have good evidence for that, or is it just what the people that hire CEOs tend to think? When I think of disastrous CEOs that I've managed to hear about, they weren't cheap. They got paid huge amounts to cause their disasters.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Do we have good evidence for that, or is it just what the people that hire CEOs tend to think? I think so, and it’s largely in the attrition of start-ups due to executive leadership breaking down. Start-up founders are already a rarefied group; that so many break down or flip out or can’t handle all the balls in the air is telling. (There is plenty of academia on the topic. It doesn’t support massive paydays. But certainly single-digit millions, i.e. life-changing money for someone who may already be rich.) > got paid huge amounts to cause their disasters Look at the state of the company they took over. Golden parachutes are often required to woo top talent to a trash pile because top talent knows the world is stochastic.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > Look at the state of the company they took over. Yes, I'm specifically thinking of companies that were doing fine when they took over.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    There is the problem. There is evidence a great CEO can make a difference. And if a great CEO wants millions they are worth it. However nobody knows how to tell a great CEO from bad.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - nativeit 3y ago
      That sounds like the old advertising idiom, “Half of all advertising works, but you will never be certain which half,” or something similar anyway. I think there is a very distinct “lightning in a bottle” component to great and/or successful companies. Combinations of effective teams, aligned motivations, good timing, a leader who can identify and leverage all of those elements to great effect, and some X factors that are simply unknowable. That may be just a slightly more nuanced way of saying they’re lucky, but also good fortune in externally changing scenarios is certainly one of those unknown factors. I think the ability to recognize, organize, and effectively leverage all of the elements such that a company is well-positioned if/when the external factors line up in their favor is what defines a great CEO. I think that ability is akin to naturally talented musicians. Most people can, with enough time and effort, learn to play a guitar very well. They still won’t be Jimi Hendrix. The downside is, you can’t force it or fake it (at least not for very long). I think of parallels with the difference between the British and American versions of the TV show “Top Gear” that was being produced in the mid ‘00s. The original British show was the lightning in a bottle, and became one of the most successful TV series on the planet. The lifeless copy they attempted in the US followed the recipe meticulously, and was cringeworthy. (Edit: Missed the word “never” up top)
ryandrake 3y ago
The necessary skills are not rare, but the roles are rare so people start to think the skills are rare. I get a lot of grief for this opinion but I think most HN'ers could do the job of "CEO of whatever company they currently work for". It's not rocket science. We have this mythology around CEOs that they are such outlier smart, special, hardworking people, but really it's just that the top of the pyramids contain few people.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Shadow the CEO of a well-run large company around for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't want that job, and I'm not sure I could do it. Always being on-call, and having to constantly context switch and synthesize questionably-accurate material from reports, to make important decisions. (And that's not even broaching the political tasks... which are required, because it's the only way to become and remain CEO)
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Definitely wanting the job is separate from can do the job, although to be honest, I would be happy to get paid $6+ million for the job "Fail to turn around Mozilla". Heck, I'd be willing to do it for 10% of that compensation.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      That's glib. No one is hired to fail, and no one tries to fail. They're hired to try and succeed, and sometimes it doesn't go that way.
      - pooper 3y ago
        It is not glib. Here is how I would put it. > I wouldn't want that job. However, with the right team I AM sure I could do it. Remember as a tech lead, if you are heroically writing a lot of code burning the midnight oil, banging out tickets and completing sprints by yourself, you are failing. As a CEO, the more you are doing the more you are failing. This is probably why it is so hard for people like us to he leaders. It is very difficult to delegate and not meddle with things. It is easy to say let go but very hard to actually do so. Remember that even Steve Jobs delegated all operations and supply chain stuff to tim cook. And that's Steve Jobs! We are not Steve Jobs. There is no reason why my manager should make more money than me.
bawolff 3y ago
> And lots of people do really hard jobs for much much much less money. I would consider most min wage jobs harder than what i (computer programmer) do. Compensation is often inversely correlated with how shitty the job is.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Hard as in "undesirable" isn't the same as in "the skills to do it are rare", though.
satvikpendem 3y ago
Why would those skills not be rare? How many people do you know that can do all that? I know vanishingly few and I suspect most do too.

fabrice_d 3y ago

Imagine being both the CEO of the corp and the chairwoman of the non profit. Damn! Remember Mitchell killed FirefoxOS (I know you were likely happy about that @gkoberger), and now Mozilla is complaining about not getting level playing access to other OSes. Guess what, when you have no platform, you'll be forever a second class citizen. Baker is a good motivational speaker, but should never have been allowed to made any operational decision.

wkat4242 3y ago
Technically FirefoxOS is still around: https://www.kaiostech.com/ https://www.kaiostech.com/ . It's now an OS for feature phones. It's no longer owned by Mozilla but they did have a lasting impact, that's what I mean. And many of their throwaway projects have gone that way. For example Firefox VR browser is now Wolvic. https://wolvic.com/en/ https://wolvic.com/en/ . It's the great thing about open source, the work is not lost. But Mozilla had no chance in the real smartphone market. If Microsoft couldn't manage to attract developers with their billions and dedicated hardware, Firefox supplying only the OS and no hardware just had zero chance to make it mainstream. It would have been relegated to the same position as Sailfish: A cool curiosity but not interesting enough for anyone but some hobbyists to develop for. I don't think it was a bad idea trying: At that time the duopoly in the smartphone market was not as firmly established and there were other open projects like Ubuntu as well. They might have attracted a huge party like Samsung (after all, they did go for Tizen in the end!) and things might have worked out differently. But the choice to drop it was inevitable at that point.
- fabrice_d 3y ago
  FxOS failed commercially because it tried to be a "me too" product, with the same distribution strategy as Android that relies a lot on carriers. For that to work you need to get support from key apps in the carriers markets, and FxOS never managed to get Whatsapp on board. KaiOS got Whatsapp support thanks to shipping in India with a single carrier (Jio) that has a very large user base. Deployment in the rest of the world has been a struggle and the company is not in great shape. All that to say that Mozilla could have kept the lights on for a couple more years and get access to large markets. Hard to predict what would have happened but we certainly would have more diversity in the OS space.

RHSman2 3y ago

Those constraints can be turned into positives depending on your point of view. Imagine what you could do?

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

I don't have any insider knowledge but: > your only lever is to negotiate (from a position of weakness, because they're much bigger) a deal every 3 years in order to keep paying your employees. It's entirely possible that Mitchell Baker was responsible for getting hundreds of millions of dollars extra for Firefox when they switched search provider and then back, invoking a clause in their agreement with Yahoo. Which seems like some pretty skilful playing of a bad hand.

jonathankoren 3y ago
The fact that they switched from Yahoo after the Yahoo sale to Verizon was announced, and got Yahoo to keep paying them was a great move. I talked to one of the corporate lawyers that worked that deal, and told him it was a genius move.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

palata 3y ago

I think that the "it's paid a lot because it's super hard" is generally a bad excuse. Many things are super hard, many people make a lot of sacrifices to be among the bests at what they do. Yet they don't earn that much. When the thing you are good at is being a CEO (as opposed to, say, being a teacher), then you are very lucky. Because other CEOs before you managed to make it acceptable to earn an indecent salary for just doing a job. Ok, let's say they don't sleep at all, so they can work 2-3x as much as the average people. Are they paid 2-3x more? No! They're paid orders of magnitudes more. That's indecent.

Denzel 3y ago
So what solution are you proposing? Right now, you’re simply complaining about a perceived problem without offering any logical argument for an alternative. I do not mean to sound flippant, I’d like to hear what your alternative ideas are.
- palata 3y ago
  > So what solution are you proposing? To the problem of human beings receiving way too much money for the time they spend doing their job? Easy: crazy taxes. If the company really wants to increase the salary up to some limit, knowing that 95% of that increase will go into taxes, then good for them. Otherwise they can do something else, like increasing other salaries or hiring people. Also if you ask me, there should be laws for the difference between the lowest and the highest salary in a company. I.e. "the highest salary cannot be more than X times the lowest salary". Which means that if the CEO wants to earn more, they need to raise the lowest salaries.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > there should be laws for the difference between the lowest and the highest salary in a company I'd imagine that at a place like Mozilla (effectively a high-tech nonprofit primarily staffed by white-collar workers), this difference in compensation is actually not that big, compared to, say, a business that hires hourly workers.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

And the whole point is that paying someone 6M means you should be able to figure out how to solve for these problems The idea that nobody possibly could reconcile these issues and yet should still be paid egregiously is absurd