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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#741
post #640

I was at Mozilla for a while and it was a two-class system. The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-figures. This is not even included in comp. One time, the CFO sent out a missive urging everyone to stay in AirBnB to save money and the execs (literally the following week) booked $500/night rooms at a hotel in NYC. I think the moment…

Two days back I wrote this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22034293 I doubt if this is just with Mozilla. Things like these are come as job perks when you enter management. And this one of the reasons why you must aspire to be a manager and not a programmer on the longer run. >>The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-fi…

I used to work at Stanford, once upon a time. Our boss got us training for a week around Hollywood with a Jag as a rental. Our boss'es boss seriously put in to have helicopter rides to work, and they definitely had $100+ per diem and expense accounts. What's interesting is when your boss has self-approval over their own budget and expenses. They're not really big on accountability so much as expanding prestige and pyramids on their sides of the org charts.

Similarly, Big 4 and MBB tend to have healthy expense accounts and fringe benefits.

PS: One of my coworkers kept a counter for all-hands meetings because previous said entitled boss'es boss tended to go full mission statement by overusing a particular "motivational" word during their carefully-choreographed, dog-and-pony PowerPoint. Dilbert and Dogbert would've both doubled hand/pawpalmed.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This will sound outrageous to US technology workers in 2020, but some people are able to separate their professional lives from the religious and political beliefs of their co-workers. About 15 years ago it was perfectly normal for this exchange to take place: Your view of marriage is a faith-based promise to your deity based on millennia of tradition and completely different from my view of it as a legalistic civil…

And 15 years ago, it was also impossible for gay people to get married.

I'll take today.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#743
I had Mozilla hr straight up tell me they wanted me to hire someone based on color regardless of performance difference even if somewhat large and obvious. For you ladies, they indicated clearly that "we have enough women in engineering".

This wasn't exactly a fun moment. I left Mozilla after this. Most of the reason i post all this here now.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#744

I was at Mozilla for a while and it was a two-class system. The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-figures. This is not even included in comp. One time, the CFO sent out a missive urging everyone to stay in AirBnB to save money and the execs (literally the following week) booked $500/night rooms at a hotel in NYC. I think the moment…

$500/night for a hotel in NYC sounds relatively cheap. $400 is about the lowest you can find. If you find $350, I would really recommend you not stay there.

Price and value have very little correlation, especially in such a narrow band. Airbnb NYC Manhattan ranges from $35 to $326 with a high confidence interval, peaking at $95. 5 stars with excellent reviews costs from $153 - 295 on Orbitz. In conclusion, you're talking out of your posterior without evidence or experience.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#745
post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much could they have scaled backed their comp to save 70 jobs?

Is 70x a strange multiple for an executive to make? I’m sure I’ve heard stories of more. That said, I doubt the executives at Mozilla make north of 7M

For a single executive yes. But all of them combined could add up to 70x

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#746
Too many chiefs, and they can the good braves. Top heavy org chart is going to commence years of random re-orgs to dance around the real problem: management. Firefox is of course even more likely to founder going forward.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#747

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…

Yeah, but how goods the diversity?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative? Google? Not really better even if this disappoints about Mozilla.

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

There are no good alternatives. The corporations have hijacked the design-by-committee "open standards" by requiring DRM. Hobbyists are shut-out.

Mozilla's FF was once a viable alternative to FAANG privacy monetization, but they're flailing around like their leadership doesn't know what to do but fire engineers and re-organize the deck chairs (org chart) on the Titanic.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Probably not but that is what the market cost is. Is it really? The average pay for the CEO of a company of Mozilla's size is somewhere around $800,000 according to [1]. And a pretty large chunk of that is performance related. Of course salaries may vary a lot between industries, but given Mozilla's performance, their CEO's salary appears to be on the high side. [1] https://chiefexecutive.net/ceo-and-senior-executiv…

Besides the fact tech skews much higher, especially tech in SV, Mozilla doesn't have stock or equity to pass around, so has historically had relatively high cash compensation for its size instead. I think that has become less true over the years, but it does tend to inflate salary or salary+bonus numbers unless you compare to total comp elsewhere (including parachutes and other bonuses that may not make these sheets)…

The numbers I quoted include new stock/equity as well as equity gains.

Also, Mozilla is a rather unusual tech company in many ways. Leading Mozilla comes with unique opportunities not easily found elsewhere. Monetary compensation is not the only incentive for people.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#750
post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can give some examples or do you know of any blog posts, books etc that talk about this in more detail?
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