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

calpaterson.com

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"It is interesting to note that Brendan Eich's severance pay when he was forced out of Mozilla was just $113,000" He was 11 days on the job, so, not so bad.

He was a co-founder of Mozilla. What the hell? He had been CTO before he was made CEO.

I stand corrected, my bad.

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

#262
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…

[deleted]

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High risk jobs should get higher compensation than low risk jobs. I agree with you, but isn't the problem more that they're sinking the ship? To take it to the extreme, if I joined a fortune 50 company as the CEO, and started losing billions a year with my decisions, should the board pay me more because I've created a risk to my reputation?

People aren't paid what they "deserve" but what value they provide to the company. If the situation exists (whether created by the CEO or not) that makes it more expensive to replace the CEO, then unless they plan on firing the ceo, the ceo's value to the company increases because they are expensive to replace. Or to put another way, life isn't fair and outcomes dont neccesarily align with what people deserve in a mo…

> the ceo's value to the company increases because they are expensive to replace.

The CEO’s value in general increases but that of the current particular CEO which is running the company into the ground decreases a lot more than that.

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

#264
I feel like the only thing that can save Fx at this point is a community-funded, community-led fork. The only problem is: this project would need a lot of monies, so unless there's a corporate sponsor (or sponsors) it's unlikely to happen. And corporate sponsorship would require some sort of incentive that makes the investment worthwhile but at the same it it can't compromise the spirit of the project.

Let's say that the cost of a single full time contributor is $200k/y on average. Every 10 people working on the project cost $2mil/year - that's roughly the funds FreeBSD raises each year (and 3-4x more OpenBSD does). And I don't think you can continue independent fork with 10 people; you'd need 30-50 for the fork to make sense. I suspect it would be possible to get corporate sponsorship for the infrastructure needed so I'm not counting those costs but at this scale there's some legal and administrative overhead that has to be taken into account as well.

So the bottom line seems to be that you need around $10mil per year to let Fx survive as a community project. And I'm pretty sure you can't crowdfund that much. :S

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

#265
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s so great about this CEO? Would a cheaper CEO do worse?

I agree, I dont think this CEO is special. His argument is flawed on that premise alone. I think they should pull an MS and promote the CIO or a lead engineer.

They fired everyone who would've been worth promoting already.

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

#266
post #253

> Mobile browsing numbers are bleak: Firefox barely exists on phones, with a market share of less than half a percent. This is baffling given that mobile Firefox has a rare feature for a mobile browser: it's able to install extensions and so can block ads. This is true, and indeed very strange. I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. So Mozilla's problems aren't only technical, there's also a question of market aw…

> I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly.

Not anymore!

To be consistent with their business screw ups, they addressed this with the latest updates. Now the mobile app a mess like the rest of Mozilla.

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

#267

It is interesting to note that Brendan Eich's severance pay when he was forced out of Mozilla was just $113,000. https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozilla... Also interesting to note that Brendan Eich too plotted a chart showing Baker's pay vs Mozilla stock's performance: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584 How anyone can claim that sort of pay hike when showing very poor res…

> How anyone can claim that sort of pay hike when showing very poor results is beyond me.

Did you ever read animal farm?

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

#268
In American corporate culture (most of the world's corporate culture), CEO pay is not tied at all to performance. The idea is they should be compensated well, otherwise they and their talent (even lack thereof) would go elsewhere.

Even if you really really believe in capitalism, I don't know how that is capitalist. It just seems like a "tails I win heads you lose" arrangement.

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

#269
At the end of the day, they failed at their original mission:

"It was intended to harness the creative power of thousands of programmers on the Internet and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the browser market. "

All of the innovation on web standards, web frameworks, etc. has been coming from FAANG and Mozilla is funded by them. They defocused and have been messing around with all kinds of other stuff.

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

#270
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…

Without knowing the details, it's hard to say the execs are failures. They could be doing a good job, given the rough hand they've been dealt.

The rough hand of leading a company with a very successful product and having to find ways to run it into the ground?
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