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Mozilla lays off 70

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Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#951

Post by BrendanEich »

BrendanEich wrote: post #933
useragent86 wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, with full benefit of hindsight, do you think it would have been better if you had stayed at Mozilla, forcing them to either fire you (which would have been illegal) or learn to deal with dissent? I ask not to criticize but to strategize. Thanks for standing up and fighting these good fights.

I cannot comment on anything about what happened, sorry.

(I could not possibly comment, but students of constructive separation might possibly draw conclusions on their own.)

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#952

Post by z3t4 »

BrendanEich wrote: post #448
geoelectric wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-prof…

it's funny how FirefoxOS still feels modern. Thinking about it, I have a 10 year old browser on my old smartphone, which also feels modern. Not really much has happened since HTML5. We got a datepicker?, wait, that was HTML5, so I guess nothing new has been added. Instead web dev's build their own web components using poor performing web frameworks. Speaking for myself I spent two weeks making a freaking window menu for a web app, yeh, I know window menus are not good UI, but it's what people are used to, and I made it work with keyboard and screen readers.

The browser market is worth around 5 billion, but that is only if you count bribe money from Google. You could double that number from showing ads directly. But you could make two orders of magnitude more if you had an actual business model (that did not resolve around ads, although ads can be used as a complement). Quick hanging fruit: Micro transactions, in (web) app purchases... Instead I have to walk around with a plastic card with numbers on it, the only security is the last 3 numbers, that are also printed on the plastic card. There is no encryption, no digital signing, freaking ston-age! And we pay 2-5% plus a monthly fee to use it, wtf!

The cloud business is a slow growing market, but I expect it to explode in maybe 10 years or so. Other companies, like Microsoft also thinks so, and are investing heavily in the cloud. But what is the main UI to access "the cloud"!? The browser... With "the browser" you become a middleman between the platform players and the content providers.

Normal users don't care what stack they are on, it's just that the native UI elements are better then the browser components. So native apps usually performs better then web apps. And are nicer to use.

Browsers are not just for documents any more. (most corporations still use word documents and pdf, sigh). Ever since browsers got scripting capabilities developers want (including myself) to build apps in the browser. Just look at electron. Developers want to build front-ends using browser technology! Just like gfx cards give the developer the ability to draw triangles, the browser gives you divs. But a gfx card can paint billions of triangles per second, while the browser can only handle a few hundred DOM elements.

Another low hanging fruit are app to app integrations. On a native platform you can copy content from one app to another app, you can save a file in one app, and open it in another app, but not so much in the browser. Although modern browser can make use of the system clipboard, data is sent from one app -> to the device -> then back to the other app. It should instead go directly from (cloud) server to server.

Sorry for the random ramblings, I'm just a web developer trying to re-invent the wheel. (I'm also looking for a job where I can play with this crippled browser tech, or a PO role where I can just point in the right direction and smarter people take care of the execution)

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#953

Post by pmichaud »

joecool1029 wrote: post #941
pmichaud wrote: post #902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I won't convince you about my capacity for empathy in this context, but I guess I'll just say that my opinion here isn't a lack of empathy for the guy or his family. I'm not confused that reading such things could hurt. I have come to a place in my life where I crave more honesty all around, and I'm willing to pay for it with emotional pain. And it's not just a selfish sort of myopia--like, I can imagine you…

As an exercise I want you to go back, read what you wrote on this topic and count the I's. Then read my response which I will now use neutral language in. This nor my last post was written to suggest autistic perception, but rather that not everyone thinks from others' different perspectives naturally (wherever they sit on the spectrum). I will indulge in your stated interest to receive honesty. You don't write like…

If you read my original post it was a straightforward statement about my preferences for myself, and nothing about what I thought the right thing was or what other people should want. That wasn't an accident. I think your heuristics for judging people by their statements might be misleading you about who I am and what I think?

It's a little disorienting to have you relating to me as though I'm deficient in perspective taking, mainly because perspective taking (and teaching others to take perspectives) is literally my profession.

My best guess is that your main point in the last thing you wrote is that I am not thinking of my own relatives and loved ones when I say I want a warts-and-all style obit for myself--that if I took their perspective, and realized it would hurt them for me to receive what I want, then I might change my mind, particularly on the grounds that the obit is actually for them, not for me. Let me know if I got that wrong.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#954

Post by BrendanEich »

BrendanEich wrote: post #458
Blake_Emigro wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't take into consideration revenue growth, which according to the corporation's Wiki page grew much faster and higher in multiples than her salary. As well, according to the same Wiki, "There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid." It would be a bummer to run a company of that size, be dedicated to it for so long, and not have any stake in it. Imagine her…

Wikipedia is unreliable. Perhaps you missed it, but Verizon bought Yahoo!, realized how Marissa's five year default search deal with Firefox was bleeding money as most users reset their default to Google, and Mozilla and Verizon declared the other party in breach in rapid succession. This will go to court, and my money is on Verizon. There will be no balloon payment of the last two years. The jump in comp in 2017, as…

Correction, the source said "corporation board members" demanded compensation, not foundation board members. The 2018 form 990 backs this up: $0 to board members other than Baker. No transparency re: corp board member comp.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#955

Post by SamReidHughes »

BrendanEich wrote: post #934
SamReidHughes wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm being a pedant about the way one might pursue the line of reasoning of comparing to other companies' pay, not its validity and overall applicability.

Mozilla constantly says it is not like “other companies”. We were and are in the Bay Area, which is every year more expensive, but not 3x more. It could be the 2.5m/year is justified, but not by market share up, new revenue lines, or both. What else? Competition? No, it is a custom fit job, chair of both boards and now even acting CEO. No competitive recruiting or chance for others to get the job, no real oversight.

Right.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#956

Post by manfredo »

bduerst wrote: post #948
manfredo wrote: post #940

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The law is to prevent employers from extorting all employees into taking political action under threat of termination. Not incorrect, but an incomplete description of these worker protections. It is also prevents employers from threatening employees into refraining from taking political action, "No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of di…

This is becoming ad nauseum. You're missing the point about how the law applies differently to company policy and actions, but my guess is that you desperately want them to be the same hence your repeated arguments and confirmation bias. The lawyer blogs you and another commenter linked to are trying to sell services to sue employers and are not valid analyses.

> This is becoming ad nauseum. You're missing the point about how the law applies differently to company policy and actions

Where are you getting this idea that this law only applies to company "policy". Reread the protections:

> No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through _or_ by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.

Where does it say that this is only prohibited by policy? It says "No employer shall..." not "No employer shall implement policy to...". The law does not apply differently to company "policy" versus "actions".

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#957

Post by manfredo »

bduerst wrote: post #949
manfredo wrote: post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are prohibited, "...through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment". It's illegal to do influence employees through means of discharge or through threat of discharge. Firing someone for political activity and threatening to fire someone for political activity are both in violation of these employment protections.

You're cherry picking the statement by quoting it out of context, which shows the law only applies to one (coercion): > No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity. You also dodged the…

It applies not to one, but to four:

> No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees...

So it's not just coercion, it's prohibiting influence (as well as attempts at either). And it also describes the manner of influence that is prohibited:

> through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment.

It is prohibited to influence employees through discharge or loss of employment or through threat of discharge or loss of employment. Both threatening to fire someone and actually firing someone over political activity are prohibited.

And lastly it describes what the employer is prohibited from influencing their employers to or to refrain from doing:

> to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.

Using the above to get employees to follow a political action to to refrain from following a political action is prohibited.

> You also dodged the question.

Because the question is inane and you know it. My whole point was that both threatening to fire Eich and actually firing Eich for donations violated these protections, so this distinction is irrelevant. But I'll entertain you: threatening to discharge someone over political activity is when an employer threatens and employee to fire someone for taking or refusing to take a political action. Discharging someone over political activity is when they are actually fired.

And now it's my turn to give you an inane question of my own: When the law prohibits both threatening to discharge someone for political activity and actually discharging someone for political activity, is trying to justify firing someone for political actions by saying, "it's okay they actually discharged him for political activity, they didn't threaten to discharge him" an effective approach?

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#958

Post by iamleppert »

arendtio wrote: post #797
iamleppert wrote: post #634

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…

So what would be your strategy to increase the Mozilla revenue?

If I were Mozilla, I'd focus my efforts on creating a search engine. Search engine tech and computational resources are available these days and dare I say it's perfectly feasible to create an alternative to Google. In addition to that, create a Google docs or at least good Gmail competitor. They have the technical talent to do it, and they could capture a real market of people who would pay for such products, if done well, that are concerned with privacy and don't want to use Microsoft or Google products.

Re: Mozilla lays off 70

#959

Post by joecool1029 »

pmichaud wrote: post #953
joecool1029 wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an exercise I want you to go back, read what you wrote on this topic and count the I's. Then read my response which I will now use neutral language in. This nor my last post was written to suggest autistic perception, but rather that not everyone thinks from others' different perspectives naturally (wherever they sit on the spectrum). I will indulge in your stated interest to receive honesty. You don't write like…

If you read my original post it was a straightforward statement about my preferences for myself, and nothing about what I thought the right thing was or what other people should want. That wasn't an accident. I think your heuristics for judging people by their statements might be misleading you about who I am and what I think? It's a little disorienting to have you relating to me as though I'm deficient in perspectiv…

>It's a little disorienting to have you relating to me as though I'm deficient in perspective taking, mainly because perspective taking (and teaching others to take perspectives) is literally my profession.

Never claimed you were deficient. I claimed it appears that you do not naturally think this way and it shows in your writing.

>My best guess is that your main point in the last thing you wrote is that I am not thinking of my own relatives and loved ones when I say I want a warts-and-all style obit for myself--that if I took their perspective, and realized it would hurt them for me to receive what I want, then I might change my mind, particularly on the grounds that the obit is actually for them, not for me. Let me know if I got that wrong.

That's the gist of what I'm trying to convey. I can understand though that some, maybe you, would rather risk some distress to those around them in hopes others will have a better acceptance/understanding of who they really were.

If you feel I'm really off-base on my comments about you, I'm actually making a point with that too. If I were you wrote an obit about you, you'd obviously disagree with claims being made (yes, I'm aware we only know each other from a series of brief posts back and forth). It's the same way with any acquaintance doing it, they only get to know parts of you and the parts you think they know might be totally at odds with the values/image you tried to convey about yourself.

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