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Mozilla lays off 70

techcrunch.com

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#2

Post by ameshkov »

Brendan Eich tweeted that they laid off about 70 people: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217517703914643456

This is about 7% of all their employees.

People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked.

A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...

> In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Baker specifically mentions the slow rollout of the organization’s new revenue-generating products as the reason for why it needed to take this decision

edit: fixed the numbers, added some more details.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#3

Post by pasttense01 »

ameshkov wrote: post #2

Brendan Eich tweeted that they laid off about 70 people: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217517703914643456 This is about 7% of all their employees. People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked. A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-... > In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Ba…

From the 2018 State of Mozilla annual report: With over 1,000 full-time employees worldwide https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#4

Post by ameshkov »

pasttense01 wrote: post #3
ameshkov wrote: post #2

Brendan Eich tweeted that they laid off about 70 people: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217517703914643456 This is about 7% of all their employees. People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked. A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-... > In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Ba…

From the 2018 State of Mozilla annual report: With over 1,000 full-time employees worldwide https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2018/

I don't know why, but for some reason, I was thinking there were about 600 of them. Thanks for the link, I've edited my comment.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#7

Post by WilTimSon »

ameshkov wrote: post #2

Brendan Eich tweeted that they laid off about 70 people: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217517703914643456 This is about 7% of all their employees. People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked. A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-... > In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Ba…

I'm surprised they're laying off security and QA, considering how focused on privacy and security their marketing campaign seems to be. In the last 6 months, I think 90% of cases where I saw Mozilla mentioned were about how it's the 'hot new browser' for the privacy-concerned. Although, perhaps, that's more to do with a good marketing team and less with a sprawling security department? Would love to see some expert opinion on what this means for the company's current trajectory.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#8

Post by falcolas »

70 employees, at a grossly over-estimated cost of $200,000 a year each (QA "leads" would probably cost a fraction of that), would cost Mozilla about $14M to retain. They are retaining their $43M budget for blue sky research intact (per TFA).

It feels like a better compromise could have been made.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#9

Post by petagonoral »

falcolas wrote: post #8

70 employees, at a grossly over-estimated cost of $200,000 a year each (QA "leads" would probably cost a fraction of that), would cost Mozilla about $14M to retain. They are retaining their $43M budget for blue sky research intact (per TFA). It feels like a better compromise could have been made.

Would love to see the compensation their board members and execs are claiming.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#10

Post by raister »

ameshkov wrote: post #2

Brendan Eich tweeted that they laid off about 70 people: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217517703914643456 This is about 7% of all their employees. People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked. A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-... > In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Ba…

It was Microsoft (or other company I don't recall) that every 5 years would lay off 5% of its work force (the least capable or productive people) - this would cause those that remain to work harder next year. Then, they would open positions. Rinse and repeat.
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