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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#51
post #13
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.

Cost per employee can be much higher than their compensation. Maybe around 25% higher.

I don't know what Mozilla's benefits are like, but 25% may still be pretty conservative. Just payroll taxes and 401(k) matching can be ~15% of salary, before you take into account things like health insurance. At my company, I cost about double my actual salary.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#52
post #26

I don't understand Mozilla. How did the go from a lightweight Mozilla Browser alternative to a company that spends $450m annually and dedicates $43m just for future endeavors? Why couldn't they just focus on making the best browser possible with a small dedicated team?

I also don't understand why they keep pushing useless services.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#53
post #46

in 2018, mozilla had 368 million USD in assets: 2018 financials: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201... wow, 2.5 million for the executive chair of Mozilla in 2018. is that person really bringing 2.5 millions dollar worth of value to the company. this is in addition to the 2.x million from the year before. 10s of million exfiltrated out of a non-profit by one person over the last few years. n…

They probably need to feed their children.

Feed them what? Gold?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#54

in 2018, mozilla had 368 million USD in assets: 2018 financials: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201... wow, 2.5 million for the executive chair of Mozilla in 2018. is that person really bringing 2.5 millions dollar worth of value to the company. this is in addition to the 2.x million from the year before. 10s of million exfiltrated out of a non-profit by one person over the last few years. n…

> is that person really bringing 2.5 millions dollar worth of value to the company.

Probably not but that is what the market cost is. I have no doubt the executive chair of Mozilla has other offers.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#55

I'm looking forward to some paid products from Mozilla (including the vpn). Privacy focused personal zeroknowledge cloud things are needed. I'd love to have a more elaborate version of Firefox Sync that worked across chromium (and I'd pay for it). The obvious calendar, mail, etc. I'd pay for a zeroknowledge hosted Berners Lee Solid service. Do this stuff and I'll pay well for it.

Why do you want sync with chromium?

Firefox syncs just fine with Firefox on any platform, including mobile. Just use it everywhere, no?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#57
post #18

I thought Mozilla was a foundation not a company.

It's both. When I worked there, the Foundation (non-profit) owned the Corporation (for-profit). If you donate to Mozilla it's going to the non-profit org.

Would be interested in hearing more about your views on this. I use Firefox and Thunderbird almost exclusively, and every time I think about donating money I then remember all the wasted time and effort they've poured into what seem to be pipe dreams over the years. I WANT them to succeed. I WANT there to be an alternative on the desktop to Chrome (now that Edge is basically rebranded Chromium), and on iOS to both Chrome and Safari, I WANT to support their excellent documentation portal (which everyone else rides on the back of - even MS points to it a lot now). But man, I just don't trust the powers-that-be there to make non-braindead strategic decisions, year after year. Talk me out of that prejudice against them, please?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#58

in 2018, mozilla had 368 million USD in assets: 2018 financials: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201... wow, 2.5 million for the executive chair of Mozilla in 2018. is that person really bringing 2.5 millions dollar worth of value to the company. this is in addition to the 2.x million from the year before. 10s of million exfiltrated out of a non-profit by one person over the last few years. n…

I don't see how that is an unreasonable salary for the CEO of a highly influential tech company. CEO pay for other large tech companies is much higher.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#60
post #37
post #26

I don't understand Mozilla. How did the go from a lightweight Mozilla Browser alternative to a company that spends $450m annually and dedicates $43m just for future endeavors? Why couldn't they just focus on making the best browser possible with a small dedicated team?

Would you cut, say, Rust?

Rust is perhaps the best thing to come out of any corporation in years. Protobuf, Envoy, Kubernetes, ... -- I struggle to think of anything better for our industry than Rust.
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