Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

Most people on HN (nee the world) don't think critically when they see a clickbait title / submission. I've worked for many companies that have been flogged by the users of public forums, without those users having the slightest idea what they are talking about. But being angry sure does feel right. (I am guilty of the same...)

Mozilla was dead to me the moment they decided to financially support the encrypted communication services of antifa (riseup.net). Even though that donation was a drip compared to what the CEO pulls out of the organisation.

I straight up deleted it! And I make sure that any organisation I get into won't bother optimizing or even testing for FF since it has such a small user base these days that its not worth bothering with it, testing on the default android browsers and safari has higher priorities these days.

If the end users complain, we tell them to use ANY other browser now and they are happy with it.

This is what you get when you pose as an NGO that stands for values such as free-speech and openness while you do nothing but stiffle it behind the curtains. (Helping professional political agitators, that are renown for attacking peaceful protests etc is the opposite of supporting free-speech, so is getting your own CEO booted for having an opinion, controversial or not!)

So, I don't really know the context of the stuff you're writing about, if you would please indulge me...

> Watching Mozilla leadership drive Mozilla into the ground over the last 8-10 years has been like watching a bus accident in slow motion.

I honestly am not aware much of that.

> FirefoxOS anyone?

I can't tell if you're unhappy they started that project or unhappy they stopped it. I'm guessing you're unhappy, so I'm going to go along with the guys that were involved on that project for the rest of your post.

I am curious though, since you seem to know so much about Mozilla driving itself into the ground, do you know the resources that were spent on FirefoxOS?

> The only benefit Mozilla now provides is a warning to companies that place how liked and popular employees are over how skilled and hard working they are.

I know that Andreas Gal was disliked, but how was he unskilled and what did his position have to do with the nature you're speaking of?

> Mozilla has collected such a large group of well behaved and well liked underperformers to an absurd level like no other company in history. This is no more obvious than the woefully under-qualified and perennially under-performing leadership.

How did you asses that Andreas Gal was under qualified and under performing?

> Someone please explain to me how Mitchell Baker continues to have a job?

Mitchell Baker is one of the oldest closely related employees to Netscape, Mozilla etc. She is very much the original culture of company. Her particular focus is the overall business aspect of operating the organisation rather than the technical. The technical work would have been people like Andreas Gal.

> How is Mozilla still paying this person millions, yes millions, of dollars?

That's not her sallary, that comes from compensation. Compensation is based on looking at what other similarly sized companies, usually in the same sector are paying based on similarly skilled people. Companies do not want to lose their CEOs etc. What might suprise you is that she's being paid at the lower end of the scale, and this is because she's a CEO sourced internally.

If Mozilla were to replace her with an external CEO, they would likely end up needing to pay vastly more. The compenstion paid is usually pegged to performance. While the company might have not done well as a whole, there are likely things this person has navgiated the company through that you did not see? But, if you did, please share.

> Pocket?! You are going to save Mozilla with a glorified bookmarking app?

Mozilla is following a common technique to help bring stability to the company when one or more revenue stream starts struggling or drying up -- It is diversifying income. Mozilla appears to be a very R&D sort of company, so they seem to be doing what you see companies like Microsoft Garage or Alphabet do and try to create their own 'start ups' without the company bit to try to innovate new products. Hence where FirefoxOS came from.

Many people originally scoffed at the idea of Apple doing a phone.

This seems like a "my way or the highway" or "black and white" argument, coached in language suggesting that you don't need to make inroads for peace, for the sole reason that your side is inherently right and theirs is inherently wrong. This idea of firing or ostracizing people without attempting to reform them first is a shoot first, ask questions later, knee-jerk sort of morality.

If you end someone's means of making a living or ostracize them from society, purely for moralistic reasons, just because you can, this is moral exclusion, a form of oppression. It's when your opinion of them is so poor that you no longer find the need to act ethically towards them. It's the same principle that enabled the oppression of the the Jews.

Holding this opinion is possible if you refuse to come to terms with the humanity of the person you disagree with. Our only real "obligation" in society is to follow the law. If you only live based on this obligation, you can easily become quite cruel and in some ways immoral. But instead of simply living by obligation, we can do better: we can seek to create more peace than strife. That means making inroads with your enemy, not ostracizing them just because you can.

Not sure I understand. You disagree with the way the company/organization is being run so much, so you stopped using their free product? Do you still like the actual browser?