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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#441

Post by alwillis »

marcinzm wrote: post #314
saagarjha wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX. Safari does those two specific things with a quarter of the number you mentioned. The entire team is nowhere near a thousand people.

Safari runs on 1.5 operating systems and a limited set of hardware.

Apple is known for how small their teams are.

WebKit runs on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS across Intel and ARM architectures.

WebKit provides the web views for countless 3rd party apps, including Mail, Calendar, iTunes, etc.

Apple certainly has fewer people who get paid to write code for Safari/WebKit than Google has on Chrome/Blink. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla has more people too, especially since they’re rewriting pieces of the browser engine at the same time.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#442

Post by booboolayla »

cookiecaper wrote: post #412
phonon wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mitchel, as leader of Mozilla, was essentially speaking for the entire organization; an organization, and set of ideals, Gerv devoted his entire adult life to. Saying things like-- "Eventually Gerv felt called to live his faith by publicly judging others in politely stated but damning terms. His contributions to expanding the Mozilla community would eventually become shadowed by behaviors that made it more difficult…

Ouch. I guess she's learned you've really gotta CYA in the Valley these days. Eich (inventor of JavaScript, for the record) was ousted over a private political contribution to a cause that a near-majority of Californians supported just a few years earlier. The matter was made an issue by so-called activists trawling the legally-required logs of political contributions and intentionally setting out to destroy Eich, if…

The treatment of Eich, combined with Baker's eulogy and choice of hair color (SJW war colors) tell me all I need to know about the "culture" at Mozilla. The sooner they all get fired - the better.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#443

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

wwright wrote: post #414
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Part of his job was to acquire and retain employees, allocate capital, and engage in public relations. Spending his personal money on fucking over other people (with no real benefit to the world), many of whom worked for or could work for him, is a bad sign about those parts of his job. (That may not be an argument for the board to fire him, of course, but it is an answer to “how good is he at his job?”)

Well, how is him spending his personal money anyone's business but his own? Now, you could make an argument that his sort of mob mentality is why people now skulk around behind various trusts, llcs and PACs to any kind of political work other people may dislike.

To your point, I guess it really depends on how you define his set of responsibilities, which is a valid point to make. I thought of something very limited ( writing lines of code ).

From that perspective.. why does it matter who he donates to and why. Is it not up to him to decide?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#444

Post by cookiecaper »

catalogia wrote: post #312
phonon wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She also wrote this incredibly rude and grotesque obituary for Gervase Markham after he died of cancer (working for Mozilla until the end). You are welcome to disagree, but Gerv contributed just as much to Mozilla as Mitchell did. https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2018/08/07/in-memoriam-gerva...

That's appalling. How did that make people still working at Mozilla feel? I can't imagine working under somebody like that.

It seems that there was some subsection of Mozilla employees who were offended by Gerv's views and thus publicly ambivalent, though undoubtedly privately relieved, to hear of his passing. [0]

While that doesn't excuse the "obit" Baker posted, I'm sure it had some effect on her thought process. Common decency is apparently not valued above political homogeneity in the tech industry.

[0] http://archive.today/2020.01.16-002922/https://twitter.com/c...

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#445

Post by geoelectric »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #247
malachismith wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla Corporation is NOT a non-profit.

Um.. yes, you are correct. Mozilla Corp is, however, a subsidiary of Mozilla Org with all its 503(c)(3) tax goodies that come along with it. Can you see how that it can be perceived in less than charitable way?

MoCo doesn't get the goodies. It's a cash generator (in theory, probably not so much at the moment) for MoFo, and money has to flow only in that direction as I understand it.

It's not treated as a non-profit in any way, which is why it could do multi-million dollar partnerships and pay competitive tech salaries without the kind of scrutiny or restrictions a 501(c)-anything would have.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#446

Post by BrendanEich »

malachismith wrote: post #227
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mozilla Corporation is NOT a non-profit.

But its defenders constantly say "Mozilla is a non-profit" and when pressed, note that Mozilla Foundation is the sole owner of Mozilla Corporation.

You can't have it both ways: either it is subject to Foundation=good presumptions as defenders invoke, or it is not. If not, then its comp may not be excessive at the top, but it sure jumped in 2017 while market share dropped -- and anyway, if it is a for-profit, it needs to act like one to make more money and avoid layoffs!

The double standard here just stinks. I am bound by NDAs from when I was at Mozilla, but since then I've observed and heard enough to call bullshit, and I am.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#447

Post by oceanplexian »

kick wrote: post #342
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not know that. It is odd though. I used to remember no one cared what about your Views as long as you were good at what you did. CS was as close to meritocracy as it could have been. It is a shame.

CS was never close to meritocracy (I'd argue that finance is/was historically far closer to meritocracy than CS ever was). Eich was raised in the Valley, got a Master's in CS before he had gotten a job, and was a millionaire and investing in Silicon Valley real estate before he had been working for ten years (he never started a company, and only created Javascript after something like eleven). There are people workin…

I don't agree. While things might be changing,I know for a fact that on my journey, I went from having no degree or experience, to becoming a senior engineer at one of the largest companies in the world, solving some of the hardest problems in the world, with nothing more than luck, a computer, and a passion for learning. And I know many other people in the same boat, which I hear is not the norm in other professions.

So, take that anecdotal evidence as you will. But I think I'm not the only one, and a lot of people will disagree with you. We're part of one of the only professions in the world where you can enjoy a very high standard of living in a white-collar profession with little to no expectation of having academic credentials.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#448

Post by BrendanEich »

geoelectric wrote: post #445
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um.. yes, you are correct. Mozilla Corp is, however, a subsidiary of Mozilla Org with all its 503(c)(3) tax goodies that come along with it. Can you see how that it can be perceived in less than charitable way?

MoCo doesn't get the goodies. It's a cash generator (in theory, probably not so much at the moment) for MoFo, and money has to flow only in that direction as I understand it. It's not treated as a non-profit in any way, which is why it could do multi-million dollar partnerships and pay competitive tech salaries without the kind of scrutiny or restrictions a 501(c)-anything would have.

No, sorry -- it is encumbered as a for-profit to pay taxes, but it cannot operate as a for-profit wholly owned by private investors or public shareholders would (I'm not saying that is good or bad). It is different. It's like many sports stadia/teams, universities, hospitals: for-profit wholly owned sub of a non-profit.

As I just noted in my last reply, this is abused via double-think to defend Mozilla as a "non-profit" when that wins social status, and denied (as you do) when trying to spiff Mozilla as a commercially-savvy for-profit. Sorry, you cannot have it both ways.

One thing I think is clear from its history, including when I was there (but not based on any NDA'ed info): Mozilla has not been able to act aggressively as a commercial player. Just one example: KaiOSTech is the lineal descendent and successor to FirefoxOS, going to 200M+ smart-featurephones globally, even winning a Google investment. Mozilla dropped FirefoxOS (twice, painfully).

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#449

Post by cookie_monsta »

phonon wrote: post #347
cookie_monsta wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, which bits are incredibly rude and grotesque? It reads like an honest appraisal of a person that the author has known for many years (and disagreed with occasionally as humans do)

Mitchel, as leader of Mozilla, was essentially speaking for the entire organization; an organization, and set of ideals, Gerv devoted his entire adult life to. Saying things like-- "Eventually Gerv felt called to live his faith by publicly judging others in politely stated but damning terms. His contributions to expanding the Mozilla community would eventually become shadowed by behaviors that made it more difficult…

Anderson's analysis feels very straw-mannish to me, giving the impression that Mitchell disagreed with Gerv being a Christian in the first place.

> I'm sure was a great comfort to his surviving wife, children and friends, in their time of grief.

Well, maybe - you'd have to ask them. Quite likely they share Gerv's faith and outlook and possibly don't see anything negative there.

But the point of the piece was obviously not to comfort the family, it was a message to the wider Mozilla community. And if he was the divisive character that he appears to have been, this sort of "he was a good person with some failings which he acknowledged and worked on" is just the sort of thing that prevents the truly ugly and grotesque internet pile-on that we are all so familiar with by now.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#450

Post by The_rationalist »

sushid wrote: post #425
Blake_Emigro wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She used the sandwich feedback technique for a eulogy - an interesting approach. https://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/02/20/sandwich-feedback-...

Gross, is this actually a technique taught in management? Seems disingenuous and sounds like something a really bad manager would do.

It can actually be an effective method if the employee isn't able to listen to factual criticism.
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