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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#731
post #549
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla seems to be more like a political organization nowadays.

As much as I poured into Mozilla and the community, I have always been critical of how political it has always been. It inherited a lot of that from the end of Netscape.

Could you elaborate please? What happened near the end of Netscape that made them political?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#732

Mitchell Baker should be ashamed of her performance at Mozilla. Serious missteps in the development of Firefox led to the rise of Google Chrome, and only recently (and arguably too little, too late) have they seen the light and prioritized the re-development of Firefox. Nearly all of the other projects at Mozilla that aren't related to the browser itself have been abject failures. They have not only failed in their c…

Fun fact, they promised hundred of thousand in revenue and got less than 1000.

The people let go weren't the people working on the failures for the most part. It looks like each was told "you have to save x% of money from your current operating budget. This can be lay off or by other means"

So layoffs all around,any engineers, some managers, some directors. This means mostly people who are paid more but not essential, hence you see senior people who worked a long time at Mozilla being let go, because most teams don't run services that cost a lot of money.

Note that this directive come from the new CFO and board. Feel free to look em up. When the previous CFO left I feared this would happen (previous CFO had some integrity)

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#733
post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edge or Brave. Different business models than Google's and to some extent Mozilla's.

Still 100% depending on Google, still supporting a near monopolistic position for the browser. Every Chromium fork is part of the problem, not the solution.

Engine consolidation happened, the fight now is over privacy. When and if Brave is big enough we will chart our own engine course.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#734
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm the architect of rr. Mozilla is very good at making browsers. Making browsers is incredibly hard and it's amazing that Firefox is competitive with Chrome given a fraction of the development resources Chrome has. Mozilla has made some big mistakes, but so have the other browser vendors. It's easier to brush over your mistakes when you have an ocean of resources and market power.

If Mozilla used all its income derived from Firefox on Firefox would it really be that underfunded compared to Chrome?

Absolutely.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the link above. The Peter Principle does not require change from tech to mgmt — it simply describes promotion above one’s level of competence.

Yes, I'm just using tech as an example. It still requires them to be excellent in any one field and then move into another field on the basis of that excellence, but then fail to have the excellence carry over to the new and different discipline. None of these people show some kind of original standout excellence in a different field that was lost in their transition to Mozilla leadership roles.

You are introducing a change of “field” where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle talks only of skills from lower level position being insufficient for competency at higher level. No change of field in the standard definition. I’ve read about, heard, and used the PP for decades without any change of field or tech vs mgmt being required to use the phrase correctly. It may be that higher level management requires training in a different field from lower, but in many firms it does not exclude promotion from below. Some of the best CEOs confound the PP to rise from the ranks.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have definitely gotten the impression (as a very peripheral observer of the Rust community) that ideological diversity is not at all the sort of diversity Mozilla is interested in.

I wonder where that impression comes from? The Rust project is surprisingly diverse there and especially the moderation teams run the gamut from very progressive to very classic conservative. We have a common boundary agreement (that's what the CoC lays out), but other then that, you'd be surprised of the number of opinions you'd see. Granted, some of the very public figures are very progressive/leftist, but they als…

I don't know about the parent but at least for me that impression came from the censorship enforced by the moderation team in https://snew.notabug.io/r/rust/comments/7nx3cm/announcement_...

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#737
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate the size of Mozilla Corp. As somebody mentioned above, the average CEO salary for a similar sized company is 800k.[1] [1] https://chiefexecutive.net/ceo-and-senior-executive-compensa...

It would be a good idea to limit the comparison to Bay Area companies of that size.

Top few execs made above 800k but not 7 figures when I was there.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the link above. The Peter Principle does not require change from tech to mgmt — it simply describes promotion above one’s level of competence.

Yes, I'm just using tech as an example. It still requires them to be excellent in any one field and then move into another field on the basis of that excellence, but then fail to have the excellence carry over to the new and different discipline. None of these people show some kind of original standout excellence in a different field that was lost in their transition to Mozilla leadership roles.

I think your comment falls into the same trap that Mozillas leadership probably fell into: Middle manager and top management are different, even if they look superficially the same. Not every good team lead or even department lead is a good fit for being part of a companies leadership.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#739
post #347

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…

I worked many years with gerv. I know that in the valley believing in Christ is seen as evil. I'm not a believer. Gerv was a good person, easy to work with and never put his faith or illness in the way of work as far as i could see. All he had was a signature in his emails about his faith.

Nobody's perfect but he definitely never looked like Mitchell's description in my day to day interactions.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many corporate leaders are Peters at work [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

I would think the Peter Principle would be better represented if there was someone who was a star on the technical side, but messed up as the CEO in a role they couldn't handle. i.e. if Brendan Eich was CEO and this happened it would be a Peter Principle moment. All these senior leadership people seem to be straight from the management track. Doesn't seem like they showed their excellence in another discipline and we…

Through the bank my experience is that a technical background with someone growing into a leadership role ultimately creates better results. People whose only skill is "leadership" tend to perform pretty badly.

But the Peter principle, doubtful if it even can be taken seriously, doesn't say anything about this specifically.

I don't know anything about Eich, but I don't really see how he would have been bad for Mozilla as a CEO. He had some controversial views as some have reported, but I don't really think that would have been very relevant, especially if so many people disagree.

All that aside, that the execs at Mozilla get millions and they still lay off 70 people is bad leadership. Really, really bad leadership. And the recent focus seem to underline that failure in my opinion.

Mozilla has done incredible things for the net and technology. Sadly, I think this is subject to change.

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