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Mozilla lays off 70

techcrunch.com

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#91

Post by vkou »

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.…

> 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.

Which worked because IE 6 was a dumpster fire for both users and developers. Developers were looking for any excuse to jump ship off it.

The browser market in 2020 is 'good enough' for users and developers. It's like gasoline - nobody cares which refinery the gas in their tank comes from.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#92

Post by diegocg »

the_duke wrote: post #25
dman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Rust is delivering better than expected results.

Only a tiny part of Firefox is in Rust now. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation#Rust_Components .

Also, Rust code can have security bugs. Memory safety bugs are not the only kind of bugs.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#93

Post by WhatIsDukkha »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #55
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #39

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?

Because, to me, even lockin to Firefox isn't a good thing.

I still use Chromium for garbage web time coughhackernews*cough for example.

All my actual work and projects are Firefox (tons of vertical tabs) and I don't want them polluted with my trash reading but would still like to see history/tabs etc at least browseable across browsers.

Containers are getting a bit more viable to combine work and consumption but not quite there.

edit - and yes I'm actually just about 100% Firefox mobile already

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#94

Post by falcolas »

asperous wrote: post #49
falcolas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees don't drive a large company's focus. Driving the focus and direction of the company is the job of Mozilla's leadership. It's the directors' job to transform that direction and focus into actionable plans, the managers' job to drive those plans, and the employee's job to implement the plans. The employees, in all reality, don't have the power to drive the direction and focus of a large company; that's a bene…

Bower's 1970 book "Managing the Resource Allocation Process" discusses how in reality it's the other way around. Leadership often struggles to manage the company strategically. Often how employees are measured (in this case looking at who was let go) drives strategy. For example, if a company states privacy is it's #1 goal but bonuses on revenue generation, privacy efforts may go nowhere. With that in mind I think th…

If it's the employees who are really driving the company strategy and focus... the board needs to fire the everliving fuck out of the leadership (and optionally find the nexii of communication at the employee level and promote them).

It's quite literally leadership's primary job to set the strategy and focus of the company. It's what they're being paid to do. If they aren't doing that, they need to be let go.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#95

Post by jonathankoren »

vondur wrote: post #70
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.

Mitchell has been influential in Netscape and Mozilla since the beginning. Also, Mozilla isn’t just a software company. It’s also an technology and public policy advocacy organization.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#96

Post by Nextgrid »

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.…

I see a big gap in the market when it comes to self-hosted Office 365 or G Suite alternatives. Microsoft Exchange is a beast both in terms of complexity as well as licensing cost, and I think most small/medium orgs don't actually need the complexity which is why they're going towards G Suite which is a less complex product to manage.

I can see them succeeding with an open-core enterprise e-mail & calendar solution where the base features are free to use and an enterprise version with extra features, like the Gitlab model with self-hosting as the key selling point.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#97

Post by [deleted] »

aaomidi wrote: post #84
EduardoBautista wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's hundreds of other engineers that can probably do as good of a job or better than him. Just because someone has a CEO label doesn't mean they have to be paid extreme amounts of money.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#98

Post by jahlove »

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.

They made $450m in revenue in 2018. What fraction of that is actually needed to keep a productive browser team afloat?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#99

Post by BitwiseFool »

jakearmitage wrote: post #52
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?

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

I think they're trying to become an ecosystem. Evidenced by all the times they try to get me to make a Mozilla account.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#100

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

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 find it annoying each time nonprofit compensation for various executives is raised. I don't want to derail the thread, but it is especially appalling in education, where entities brand themselves as nonprofit where administration swallows ridiculous amount of money.

Where do you get those executive jobs for relatively unknown entities that pay millions? Isn't there an entire IRS publication about how it is suppsed to be reasonable?

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