5 ms·
It looks like they chose a Product Manager and MBA. Why can't we get a software engineer or computer scientist?
by ecshafer 10mo ago
It looks like they chose a Product Manager and MBA. Why can't we get a software engineer or computer scientist?
- dvngnt_ 10mo agoWouldn't it make more sense to have them program and let a product person handle big picture ideas
- lawn 10mo agoThe track record of MBA's destroying companies says otherwise. What Mozilla needs is a change in leadership direction, not another MBA.
- abcd_f 10mo agoThey had one. Until he made a fatal mistake of giving a tenner to the wrong people.
- neom 10mo agoHe gave $1000 donation to support a ban on gay marriage, to be clear.
- 4gotunameagain 10mo agoOh yes, totally worth it to risk THE FREE INTERNET because of that.
- joshstrange 10mo ago> risk THE FREE INTERNET because of that Come off it, as if he is the only one who can save us. Spare me.
- philipwhiuk 10mo agoHe's not defending "THE FREE INTERNET" at his new place. (Which for the record, is less important than physical freedom).
- LunaSea 10mo agoMaybe that has to do with Brave not getting a free check to the tune iof $500M Google every year. That makes it more difficult to create "free internet" type projects.
- Orygin 10mo agoProbably comes from the Crypto scam integrated into the browser. I find it funny some people shit on Firefox for adding Pocket, but defend Brave for adding crypto scams to the browser.
- phoronixrly 10mo agoTranslation: he had donated to ban same-sex marriage in California[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CEO_and_resignation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CE...
- jsheard 10mo agoBut then he went on to make Yet Another Chromium Fork, so it doesn't seem like he was particularly attached to Gecko or what it stands for in the browser engine market anyway. What's to say that Mozilla wouldn't have given up the fight and pivoted to Chromium, like Opera and Edge did, if he was still in charge?
- sct202 10mo agoAnd he went in on integrating trendy things like Ads that pay crypto and AI integrated into the browser, so it's not like there wouldn't be AI if he were in charge.
- LunaSea 10mo agoMaybe that was necessary because they don't get a $500M check every year. Kinda makes things more difficult.
- afavour 10mo agoIs there a name for the fallacy where you assume the path not taken is much better? Because I agree, this is that. Mozilla’s challenges are foundational, Eich as CEO wouldn’t have made a dramatic difference in outcomes.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- sharps1 10mo agoThey originally started with Gecko and switched to Chromium. "There were a ton of issues using Gecko, starting with (at the time) no CDM (HTML5 DRM module) so no HD video content from the major studios, Netflix, Amazon, etc. -- Firefox had an Adobe deal but it was not transferable or transferred to any other browser that used Gecko -- and running the gamut of paper-cuts to major web incompatibilities especially on mobile, vs. WebKit-lineage engines such as Chromium/Blink." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28941623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28941623
- smt88 10mo agoEich chose to resign due to internal and external protest in the form of petitions and resignations. No one forced him to do anything, and Mozilla itself certainly didn't force him out. His free speech was met with the free speech of others, and he decided it was too painful to stay in that spotlight. How would you prefer it to have gone?
- mm263 10mo agoNot to have him cancelled in the first place. No need to pretend that doing something under the mob pressure is the same as doing something entirely willingly
- smt88 10mo agoFar, far more people have protested the positions of power held by (for example) Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle. They ignored the cancellation attempts, and they're richer and more influential today than they were a few years ago. "Cancellation" is a state of being famous enough that your controversial beliefs upset a large, loud number of people. In Eich's case, it threatened to have no effect on his career. He chose to change his career because of it. Eich expressed his First Amendment rights, and other people expressed theirs in return. Why should either of them give up those rights for fear of offending the other?
- philjackson 10mo agoThey need to build a great product as well as somehow fund the project. Seem like those credentials match the requirements.
- hobofan 10mo agoWhy do you think a software engineer or computer scientist would be more qualified?
- missedthecue 10mo agoThis site in general has a massive hate boner for any part of a corporate structure that isn't the engineering department. Sales, admin, marketing, legal, HR, etc... all get flak from the HN community for being irredeemably idiotic wastes of space.
- dabockster 10mo ago"Hacker News commenters are frequently unaware that their use cases and customer preferences do not reflect the average customer demand in the market." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192577 There's a reason I put that in my profile. :^)
- izacus 10mo agoSounds like HN users represent an underserved and untapped market and are being rational market actors while discussing their preferences.
- missedthecue 10mo agoOne of my favorite examples of this is when HNers insist that if only an auto-manufacturer would make a simple car with tactile buttons and no screen or creature comforts it would sell like hotcakes.
- dabockster 10mo agoI think those could sell, but you'd have to make the screens a luxury trim item again. Which could honestly happen if vehicle Right to Repair laws happen. But we're way off topic here. :D
- pndy 10mo agoI'm afraid they're delegated to coding nowadays and even open source projects are run like corporations with attached "foundations" parasites where funneling out money on unrelated stuff occurs. This piece linked is a dry marketing and nothing else, and I don't believe in a single bit this guy is saying or will ever say. The line about AI being always a choice that user can simply turn it off: I need to go to about:config registry to turn every occurrence of it in Firefox. So there's that.
- sunshine-o 10mo agoYes and he is writing like an MBA/Product Manager (or is it the AI?) Actually he is most likely a drone. Meaning he is speaking like he believes he is the CEO of a public company talking to the shareholders, so of course he talks about how AI is changing software. But guess what Mozilla is not a public company, there is no stock to pump and the thing it really miss is its users. Going from 30% to less than 5% market share in 15 years with a good product. Actually I am pretty sure the users who left just do not want to much AI. But he is an MBA drone so he is just gonna play the same music as every other MBA drone.