Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

calpaterson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 1001 posts

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

#571

Post by foxdev »

antonyh wrote: post #313
baud147258 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Pocket do? And how is it different from synchronizing favorites/tab between two browsers?

Formerly known as "Read It Later", it's a reading list service. You save pages for later reference. There's subscriptions to unlock features. I loved RIL but Pocket is but a shadow of what it once was. Similar to Evernote web clips, or Instapaper. I now use OneNote instead with the webclipper plugin, mostly because it puts the clips in a place where I can also add my own notes.

I switched to Joplin. It's completely seamless once I authenticate with the service I sync with and toggle the web clipper support in the desktop app. You can even clip those pages where the site blocks the Evernote and OneNote crawler since it all happens in your browser and on the local clip server.

Best of all, it's all in Markdown. There's a beta rich text editor, but the Markdown editor has a preview and a little button bar for common stuff like lists and formatting.

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

#572

Post by DonnyV »

jeltz wrote: post #513
culturestate wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a problem that she is both on the board and CEO, which effectively makes her impossible to hold to account Is this really a problem? The CEO is often a director, and even as chairwoman I doubt anything in the bylaws prevents the board at large from removing her if they wanted to. Instead, it seems like the board itself is the issue, since they allowed Mozilla to stray so far from its core mission.

Is that common in the US? Because here in Sweden it is regarded as bad practice for medium sized companies and up. The CEO is almost never part of the board here except for in tiny companies.

Anything corrupt is ok in the US. We just frame it as being efficient.

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

#573

Post by zeveb »

jboog wrote: post #470
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…

The CEO of the company spent his personal money so that his gay and lesbian employees could be discriminated against by the government. THAT IS "bringing it in the office"

That is also true of any CEO supporting gun control, and yet the number of CEOs I have seen driven from their jobs for that thoughtcrime is zero.

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

#574

Post by TheOperator »

sambe wrote: post #408
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…

The claim was not that they can't reduce but that an 80% discount was too much to ask of people (and thus also their families). I don't think anyone at any pay level would be happy being paid 20% of similar roles. Perhaps the problem was putting people in these roles in the first place that would accept 20% of market rate. Raising their pay subsequently doesn't make them better at their job! The quote is not really c…

Problem is that the CEO isn't worth the discount rate never mind being worth the raise.

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

#575

Post by zeveb »

> Out of curiosity, do you know of any companies in your field where the CEO believes you personally don't deserve rights? Would you work for that company?

Tim Cook supports gun control. I wouldn't work for Apple, but the CEO's position on gun control isn't part of that decision.

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

#576

Post by vowelless »

On one hand:

> Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's top executive, was paid $2.4m in 2018, a sum I personally think of as instant inter-generational wealth

It’s certainly not if you are in SV. And that number doesn’t even seem high to me, given her impressive background and the opportunity cost. That’s Facebook E7 money. Or Google L8 money. She would easily be hired above those levels at those companies.

On the other hand:

> But then, things are different at the Guardian. Their chief exec makes a mere £360,000 a year.

That’s quite high, for UK standards and for journalism standards.

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

#577

Post by ksec »

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.

While I definitely agree with changing leadership. I dont think she can be described as parasitic leadership.

She is incompetent, but I dont think she has the intention to drive Mozilla to the ground. After all she co-founded the Mozilla Project, and was the Chairwoman for a long time, long before she was named the CEO.

Why did they not find someone else to be CEO is beyond me though.

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

#578

Post by Liquix »

hans1729 wrote: post #303
mvdwoord wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, I have been a long time FF on Android user, mostly due to the ability to run add-ons (ublock etc). Latest update complete botched it. Couple of hnags/restarts every day, jittery UI, unintuitive button placement (e.g. new tab)... I want to use Firefox (or any decent browser not based on chrome), for several reasons, but this way it gets harder and harder to justify to myself. What alternatives do we have for non…

>What alternatives do we have for non-chromium browsers that have a healthy plugin ecosystem? The obvious answer is: none. It always was Chrome or Firefox, everything else was so niche that 'healthy plugin ecosystem' is out of reach. And this very likely won't change for the better, pretty much everyone I know ditched Firefox in favor of chrome by now. We all want to love firefox, but at this point, staying invested…

You're not wrong, but I also feel it's important we do something (anything) other than give up and use Chrome. Rock & hard place.

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

#579

Post by srtjstjsj »

Tom4hawk wrote: post #446
jacquesm wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All it takes is what, a $400M investment, but this time as a charitable gift instead of a profit-seeking venture?

Shuttleworth did that with Ubuntu and it's barely surviving.

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

#580

Post by thundergolfer »

lma21 wrote: post #443
jansan wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The pigs that separate themselves in status from the rest of the farm animals horde more resources for themselves even in the face of worsening conditions on the farm (their grain windmill gets destroyed at some point).

The pigs serve as placeholders for Stalinists, but the general dynamic exists in any political situation that accepts inequality, like corporate capitalism in the case of Mozilla.

Post reply on HN