Every good thing people are saying about Steve's contributions are true. His efforts stand out not just within the Rust community but across every open source project I've engaged with. Thank you Steve and good luck!
Thank u, next
101–110 of 182 posts
Re: Thank u, next
#102Why is it that nonprofit tech organizations see such value in maintaining a San Francisco office location (looking at you Mozilla and EFF) only to lowball employees on compensation? Surely the perception of having a trendy location can't be worth more than market salaries in the pursuit of talent? Are there other benefits to the location besides perception?
> Are there other benefits to the location besides perception?
Definitely. Access to talent pool, networking opportunities, easy customer research, marketing, and so much more.
Re: Thank u, next
#103This is a bummer on many levels, but also personally, a bit of a relief. For a while I was considering going all-in to try to get a role at Mozilla. I really believe in their mission, and I drink the kool-aid when it comes to the browser market getting gobbled up. What held me back at the time were the company reviews. The culture sounds toxic, and the management sounds incompetent, and there's no force of change tha…
Mozilla isn't a monolith. Like most medium and large organizations, your experience can vary greatly between teams and management chains. If Mozilla's mission and manifesto resonate with you, give it a shot. With Microsoft throwing their weight behind Chromium, we're the last bastion standing against a WebKit-derived monoculture. It's an impossible challenge, but it matters , and we've beaten the odds before. Current…
>Mozilla isn't a monolith. Like most medium and large organizations, your experience can vary greatly between teams and management chains.
That sounds like part of the problem. Mozilla shouldn't "vary greatly between teams and management chains" like it's some fossilized megacorp -- that's for the Oracle's of this world.
It should be a nimble and efficient non-profit style organization.
Re: Thank u, next
#104I wonder if he was told, repeatedly, "if you don't like it, leave". My experience has been that companies who don't want to change say this to their best employees, whilst dragging along their worst ones indefinitely. The best eventually follow the advice.
Re: Thank u, next
#105This is a bummer on many levels, but also personally, a bit of a relief. For a while I was considering going all-in to try to get a role at Mozilla. I really believe in their mission, and I drink the kool-aid when it comes to the browser market getting gobbled up. What held me back at the time were the company reviews. The culture sounds toxic, and the management sounds incompetent, and there's no force of change tha…
Mozilla isn't a monolith. Like most medium and large organizations, your experience can vary greatly between teams and management chains. If Mozilla's mission and manifesto resonate with you, give it a shot. With Microsoft throwing their weight behind Chromium, we're the last bastion standing against a WebKit-derived monoculture. It's an impossible challenge, but it matters , and we've beaten the odds before. Current…
When is Atom/RSS support getting reintegrated into core Firefox, then?
Re: Thank u, next
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can’t speak for steve, but having been in a similar position, hinting at it signals to peers that if they are feeling similar things, they aren’t alone. It’s easy for a lot of toxic culture to go unspoken, and to be gaslighted into thinking things are great, a post like this helps reinforce that stuff (yes vague) is not great and maybe it will lead more folks within Mozilla to pull off the rose colored glasses. Bas…
Working for Mozilla, I feel I should be able to make sense of these hints, but I can't. I have no clue what issues or missteps were deal-breakers for Steve, apart from the compensation issue. Any organization of the size will have /some/ problems, and I fail to see the usefulness of signaling that's so vague that anybody can interpret it in any way they want.
Maybe you should ask someone in your management chain why Steve was punished for expressing his concerns, thereby ensuring you wouldn't have heard about them internally at Mozilla.
Re: Thank u, next
#107Steve, you have inspired me many times over for your diligence and incredible work. Good luck on your future project, whichever one it is!
Re: Thank u, next
#108> Why’d he quit? ... he told me this: at each stage of a company’s growth, they have different needs. Those needs generally require different skills. What he enjoyed, and what he had the skills to do, was to take a tiny company and make it medium sized. Once a company was at that stage of growth, he was less interested and less good at taking them from there. This is an aspect that gets overlooked in many businesses…
To borrow from the Harry Potter universe, early stage startups need Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, but then as the company grows more and more Hufflepuffs get hired, and sooner or later the company ends up on the radar of Slytherins, who are focused mostly on obtaining fame and renown, and who are more likely to have what muggles call "dark triad" personality traits. What's most fascinating about the Hogwarts metaphor i…
For what it's worth, I don't know if anyone here, me included, considers Mozilla a "status symbol" on the resume. It certainly is nowhere near FAANG in terms of inbound recruiter volume. People who want status symbols go to Google.
(I chose Mozilla over large company offers a decade ago because the work seemed more interesting, knowing full well it was more of a gamble in terms of my career. I've never regretted the decision.)
Re: Thank u, next
#109Thank you, Steve. You have personally done more to make the Rust community what it is today than possibly any other person. It speaks very poorly of Mozilla that they don't value your work. Perhaps 2019 is the time to start the Rust Foundation, as mentioned by boats and others[0]. If so, you'd clearly be one of the founders. I would put my name into the ring for that as well, as we're now in somewhat similar circumst…
IMO if no Rust Foundation already exists, it should. I don't chip in for much of anything, but I would chip in for this [1]. Of course, whatever I donate would be peanuts compared to corporate donors. Corporate donors might be fewer for now, but once GOOG/AAPL/FB/GE/GM/etc realize Rust's potential they should/would fork over big money to keep Rust going.
Steve, it's not my business to tell you what your career should be, and TBH I have no idea what your relationship is with the rest of the Rust dev team. But maybe you would be good at creating a Rust Foundation?
[1] -- it would have to be a real US 501c3 or global equivalent, not a kickstarter/gofundme.
Re: Thank u, next
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my current role, I've seen the company go from 6 to 120 people, and it's absolutely true that there are some people that are really amazing at a 6 person company who can be extremely counter-productive in a company of even 30 or 40. Also, startups, since they are often run by people new at running companies, are often slow to respond to these kinds of folks. It's also rare that folks recognize this in themselves.…
Can you elaborate on what types of people you mean?
There's no one type, and it depends on the company. But a general archetype which seems to reoccur is that of the generalist.
Early on, people wear a lot of hats, which means they get to be involved in a lot of different parts of the company and its growth. At a certain stage, teams compartmentalize, and people who don't like being isolated to one or two teams tend to get frustrated with companies as they become more structured.
There's also often a phase where that structure is just starting to be formed, and it can be very awkward and unappealing to people as it plays out.