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Mozilla lays off 70

techcrunch.com

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#61

Post by rob74 »

ameshkov wrote: post #12
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.

This might be a sign for other employees that they need to focus on the things that can help Mozilla actually earn more and not just be a good guy. It may sound horrible, but considering their market share dynamics it makes sense.

Or it might be a sign for other employees (typically the ones the company would actually like to keep) to start looking for other, safer, jobs. Layoffs are always bad for morale...

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#63

Post by rchaud »

stuff4ben wrote: post #11

Besides donating and the as-yet-to-be-released VPN service, how else can we support Mozilla? I don't see anything they're actually selling and I hate for stuff like this to happen.

I feel like the kind of money Mozilla needs to keep going each year isn't something that can be crowdsourced like Wikipedia. Unfortunately I think big corps will continue to be Mozilla's major donors. And the big cheques they cut will come with strings attached, just not in writing.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#64

Post by Sammi »

tracker1 wrote: post #29
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 not sure why they don't largely sack half their marketing budget and concentrate on community outreach from the developer side... that's how they grew in the first place. I'm also surprised they haven't tried to create commercial mail and communications products. Thunderbird used to be one of the best options out there, and they could easily spin this off into a SaaS and self-host product on the server component.…

The world today is different. Can't skimp on marketing any more, as the competition is extremely heavy on marketing.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#65

Post by asdasdasdasdwd »

walshemj wrote: post #27
raister wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

General Electric was famous for doing this is the problem is you cant keep doing it every year. Also people just game the system and only do what will get them a good review. I know some on at a big UK company who was bucking for a promotion and they blew through 1 Mill and 15 Man years for no good reason.

> Also people just game the system and only do what will get them a good review.

Wouldn't doing a good job earn a good review? This reminds me of the xkcd comic about the bots starting to have constructive messages to avoid spam filters. Mission fucking accomplished.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#66

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux »

ameshkov wrote: post #45
jahlove wrote: 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?

Nowadays, a small team is simply not enough to develop a browser and keep up with the competition. Unless you fork Chrome, of course.

Browsers have become way over complicated.

They're always trying to figure out some new gimmick just to keep people engaged and to produce clicks.

Down-vote me, go ahead.

I speak the truth.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#67

Post by dralley »

dman wrote: post #56

Brendan Eich has a helpful chart of Compensation of Highest paid executive at Mozilla vs Firefox market share over time. https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584/p...

I don't much care for Eich but that graph (as in, what it represents) is just shameful.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#68

Post by dangerlibrary »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #58
petagonoral wrote: post #35

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.

I'll do it for a cool 800k.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#69

Post by sciurus »

falcolas wrote: post #48
dangwu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If most of their employees live in high COL areas like Mountain View, CA, then the 200K figure seems very fair. Maybe even low.

They don't appear to, however. For another response, I was looking at their 2019 financials, and for the Mozilla Foundation unit, 60 employees cost about $11M. I stand by my guesstimate of $200,000 as a high estimate.

I expect the foundation (which is largely non-technical) to have much lower average compensation than the corporation (which is predominately engineering-focused).

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#70

Post by vondur »

petagonoral wrote: post #35

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…

What I don't understand is why they chose a lawyer to run a software development company.
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