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Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

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Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#161

Post by roenxi »

Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

That chart shows a pretty beautiful 10 year trend. Yep, they are on a sinking ship.

'Failures' on the other hand - that is a loaded word. They are failures, they have failed at making Firefox popular. But what needed to happen to build an alternative world where they succeeded? The browsers that succeeded were Chrome and Safari - browsers sponsored by the owners of the two major platforms for accessing the internet, backed by billions of dollars of corporatyness.

What is Firefox meant to do? Charities aren't innovation engines. Back in the day when they were making progress on market share, the options were Firefox or IE6. The strategy of the Chrome web team is slightly different than the IE6 web team. I'm sour about Firefox wiping out their value proposition when they canned the good extensions - but that happened circa 2017 so it isn't the problem for adoption. They need something radical to be relevant and that isn't a fair ask of a nonprofit.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#162

Post by nine_k »

twblalock wrote: post #121
kwanbix wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that they get most of their revenue from Google. The problem is that they have 5% share of the web now.

The Google money is what enabled them to let their core product wither and nearly die without any short-term consequences. They spent a pretty long time with it in that state while pursuing things like a phone OS. Without the Google money they would have had more incentive to keep Firefox competitive.

Funnily enough, the web OS turned out to be a success — only after it was sold and rebranded.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#163

Post by bawolff »

Another way to look at it: mozilla is a sinking ship. Being a CEO of a shinking ship looks bad on the resume and is high risk for the ceo (reputation wise). High risk jobs should get higher compensation than low risk jobs.

I'd certainly argue that for a normal company. For mozilla though, there is a question of why do you even need a CEO? Does Linux have a CEO? I suspect at least some of mozilla's problems is trying to run an open source project with an unsustainable (and very non-diversified business model) as a normal company.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#164

Post by jacquesm »

patrec wrote: post #158
jacquesm wrote: post #100

> And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. That must be a real comfort to all the people they laid off. This CEO needs to go, needs to be replaced by someone who is well versed in technology instead of in law.

Do you see any realistic chance of this happening? Generally if a company is captured by a parasitic leadership sucking it dry, that's it, right? Is there anyone on the board whose interests are more aligned with keeping Mozilla alive (probably hard to do at this point) than feasting on it whilst there is still something left to feast on? Presumably you'd need a few such people.

It is a problem that she is both on the board and CEO, which effectively makes her impossible to hold to account unless the board members that want her out would resign if she does not want to make way. That would be a major statement and would put the remaining board members on notice.

The board typically does not get compensated the way the CEO does so they are usually not in a position to 'suck it dry', on top of that they have some responsibilities and if they don't act in the best interest of the company they might be found to be personally liable depending on the jurisdiction and the details regarding their responsibilities.

I should study that to see if there is any way to solve it but frankly, even though FireFox has been my daily driver since about forever I don't see a happy ending here.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#165

Post by drenvuk »

echelon wrote: post #153
drenvuk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I like Balmer and Tim Cook. Their fortunes are tied to the success of their companies rather than leeching off of it as it dies. I'd posit that any CEO who is not in a Ride or Die relationship with their company does not have correctly aligned incentives for their performance.

Microsoft traded sideways during the Ballmer era.

$22 Billion to $77 Billion in annual revenue between when he became CEO to when he stopped in 2013. I think that's pretty decent. I think that it was growth in enterprise that they were successful with.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#166

Post by RobertoG »

Certhas wrote: post #129
RobertoG wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had Telefónica on board. I think with better planning and execution it could be made to work.

Maybe maybe not. But it's also good to keep in mind who else failed in that space from many different angles. MS, Nokia, Blackberry, etc... If MS with infinite cash on hand could not get into that market then it is likely that chances of success were always very low. And it still might have been the right thing to try despite the chance being low.

You are right that it was a very difficult endeavor.

I think the main bottleneck is not the installation by the vendors, but the apps available.

I believe, what is missing is an abstraction layer between the apps and the OS. If it was possible to create apps for Android and Apple in a generic way and, it was easy to add a third OS, so all the apps could be made available to the new system, a new OS would be not so limited. I know, I know, that is itself a very difficult endeavor.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#167

Post by alxlaz »

ekianjo wrote: post #134
Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

Did they look at the market of piss poor at their jobs execs before judging they were underpaid?

Unfortunately, it's very likely that they did!

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#168

Post by therealx »

lightgreen wrote: post #148
ekianjo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Mozilla have a board? Who gets to fire the CEO in this organization?

Seems like Mitchell is both CEO and board member https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board is that even legal?

Yes, it's common, but usually theres enough other board members to vote him/her off, if need be.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#169

Post by jameskraus »

lightgreen wrote: post #124
jameskraus wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really isn't crazy compensation given the role and the industry. There are many execs making orders of magnitude more [0]. I know there is a bit of sticker-shock for people who haven't heard about top-level compensation, but it's not unheard of, just usually unspoken. https://usanewssite.com/news/the-unconventional-ceo-of-33-3-...

It is crazy that the compensation is not tied to metrics. If Firefox at least kept the market share, that would be OK.

The source doesn't say this isn't tied to metrics. The base salary is only $450k per year [0]. All the rest of the comp is paid out in other ways. I would wager that there are significant compensation thresholds that are tied to metrics (but we, as outsiders, couldn't know what they are or if they are being hit).

[0] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/200...

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#170

Post by lightgreen »

goto11 wrote: post #53
mtgx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe they shouldn't have let Brendan Eich go in the first place, who seems to be doing quite well with Brave right now. Maybe a good CEO isn't defined just by the salary he or she receives?

The Brave market share is completely minuscule compared to Firefox. If success is measured by market share, it is a failure.

Brave continuously grows and it grows rapidly. This is success.

It’s not possible to get from 0 users to 20% market share overnight. Brave is doing great.

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