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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

#441

Post by te_chris »

thinkingemote wrote: post #415
te_chris wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He donated money to a political cause directly against some of his employees, got called out on it and refused to compromise. I'm sure those are admirable characteristics in some situations, as the CEO of an organisation like Mozilla they're suicidal. He doesn't seem to get that even to this day, based on some tweets linked to in this chat and in the article. "Don't be an asshole" is a pretty good philosophy if you'r…

If you had to choose between a great open source browser run by a troubled organisation and a crappy browser run by a great organisation what would you choose? What is best for the users? Foss folks and hackers would probably choose the latter, where as we've seen with all the FANNGS the world would choose the first.

That's not a choice we can make, the only choice here is the one Brendan Eich made when confronted with the consequences of his actions.

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

#442

Post by izacus »

eloisant wrote: post #384
0134340 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, another overpaid CEO trying to cash in on the relics of pre-existing browser technology (chrome).

At least Brave isn't trying to pretend it's a non-profit

But they're pretending to be privacy respecting while injecting their own ads in webpages. Far far from behaviour we'd ever want from Firefox.

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

#443

Post by lma21 »

jansan wrote: post #267
pkphilip wrote: post #87

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?

I haven't. Why is it relevant?

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

#444

Post by kinleyd »

jacquesm wrote: post #400
pyb wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any examples of a company recovering from what you describe ? I don't know of any.

Apple. Currently the most valuable company of all time . And there are interesting parallels, Apple too was kept alive by their competitor as a fig leaf in light of anti-trust troubles.

Apple was the ultimate outlier in that respect. It would be great if someone could pull this off for Mozilla. The odds are slim, but one can hope.

Edit: Cal Peterson's article clearly shows how we got here. Such a shame.

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

#445

Post by angriermozusr »

jacquesm wrote: post #243
fiblye wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't long ago that comments were shouting that this was the absolute most qualified person to lead Mozilla when others were questioning having a lawyer lead a tech company. Someone with at least a little hands-on experience in building a product really should be something companies look for in leadership. I mean, sure, Baker's done plenty for Mozilla, but Mozilla has been absolutely lost as to what they're tryin…

> t wasn't long ago that comments were shouting that this was the absolute most qualified person to lead Mozilla when others were questioning having a lawyer lead a tech company. I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. But he resigned (he wasn't forced out, though…

>leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other

Look at the glorified domain name squatter speaking high-mindedly about principles.

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

#446

Post by Tom4hawk »

jacquesm wrote: post #377
albertzeyer wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox and co are open source projects. Couldn't you just create a new company, "Next-Mozilla" or so, and fork off the projects, install a new CEO, take over the developers? You would have to use a new branding, i.e. they cannot reuse the trademark, and they have to make sure that enough people (developers and users) will switch over. But with such bad press, this might not be too hard, if there is one focused attem…

How will you pay for this? Without critical mass you are not going anywhere. FireFox had critical mass, and lost. You won't be able to recover that position without some extremely deep pockets even if you start off from what is there today. I am not convinced that even if Mozilla/FF got a competent CEO tomorrow and started executing 'just so' that they would be able to recover from their slide, a newcomer would have…

Steve Jobs was able to do that with Apple. There is no reason to believe that is not possible with Mozilla. Especially taking into consideration that Mozilla doesn't have to be profitable as a company. Being sustainable would be enough.

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

#447

Post by olejorgenb »

Jowsey wrote: post #391
DominikD wrote: post #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…

In what world is the average pay of a developer 200k/year? I'm pretty sure you could quarter that, which would make the project much more viable

The total cost of an employee is quite a bit more than the pay, but yeah seems high?

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

#448

Post by koolba »

jacquesm wrote: post #338
coldtea wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other Who asked Mozilla to be a "flagship of diversity"? What we wanted off them, and what their mission statement was, is a FOSS browser that supported the open web. Plus, one can be/believe whatever on their personal life, as l…

Nobody asked, but Mozilla took (and still takes) that role. Witness plenty of comments on HN from Mozilla employees reinforcing that. I'm all for the FOSS browser company, the 'support for the open web' is already a step in the direction of losing focus. Just keeping up and having a viable alternative browser out there keeping Chrome at bay is a major job (and one they are currently miserably failing at). > Not to me…

> Actually, it isn't. Actions have consequences, if Eich wanted to be a contributor to that cause he could have done so silently. By doing it in a publicly visible way as the CEO of a large company he made it a political statement and action begets reaction. Eich very explicitly brought his views into the office in a way that a substantial fraction of Mozilla's employees did not want to be associated with.

He didn't bring his views into the office. He had them outside and the alphabet mob lit them as a Molotov cocktail and threw them into the building.

Those employees could have quit and worked somewhere else too. In a lot of ways that would have been great as they could have cut down on a couple of the pointless projects.

By your standard it's impossible for anyone to both have public views that disagree with your own and be the head of any large organization.

> Besides that, money in politics is anti-democratic.

Money in politics is the great equalizer. It's as democratic as it gets.

Otherwise you end up with a handful of media and tech oligarchs controlling all messaging.

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

#449

Post by mapcars »

enriquto wrote: post #39
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…

> And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. This kind of bullshit infuriates me to no end.

Well, rip mozilla

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

#450

Post by tzekid »

monus wrote: post #438

I've been using Firefox for more than a decade now. In fact, I switched from IE to Firefox and never made Chrome my main browser. At times, it was difficult as Firefox was really slower than Chrome before Quantum release but I think in recent years it's gotten better. Why did I keep using it? Privacy and open-source. But after reading this, I think I will switch to Safari. It'll be a tough change after all these year…

CEO woman*. Mitchell Baker was the one who kickstarted the whole "I'm not getting payed enough in this non-profit" thing and the one who initiated the salaries increase.
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