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

651–660 of 1001 posts

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

#651

Post by tracker1 »

cultus wrote: post #612
dotancohen wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we have the person who arguably most understands the domain of web browsers, online privacy, and all the legal and ethical aspect thereof, working on another Chromium-based browser. I do not need to elaborate on why a diverse browser ecosystem is important, there are enough threads on that already. Mozilla had this jewel, exactly what it needed to succeed and make the web a better place. He was at…

Eich voted to deny gay people rights that straight people have. That's not a personal belief, that's a concrete damaging action borne of bigotry. If he had shown actual remorse for doing this, he would have been fine. But he didn't.

"My gut reaction, is that they [homosexuals] are security risks, but I must admit I haven't given this much thought…I’ll be darned!’” -- Joe Biden, 1973

How many of those that "cancelled" Eich are still going to vote for Biden?

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

#652

Post by vxNsr »

paulintrognon wrote: post #542
austincheney wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously they had appointed an excellent CEO from within that is universally well respected for his technology contributions and then they fired him after 11 days without cause. Now that guy is a CEO at a different company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

Well, if Brendan Eich stayed CEO of Mozilla, maybe we would now have a kind of firefox/brave mixed browser. But instead, we can choose between Firefox, and Brave. 2 competitors for Chrome, from which users can choose. So, in the end, maybe it was for the best?

Brave is just chrome with a few additions it’s much worse than a Braved-Firefox would be. I’m guessing he rightly feels he couldn’t use Firefox as his base due to the history.

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

#653

Post by chr1 »

avs733 wrote: post #617
dcchambers wrote: post #598

Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance? I don't root for anyone to lose their job, but in this case, it seems like the leadership of Mozilla is failing to lead them in the right direction. I don't see how that gets rewarded. If my performance metrics at work go down 85% - I'm probably getting fired. In this case, executive performance metrics should be closely tied…

>Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance? What are the implications of optimizing for those metrics over all others? Define performance? (not trying to be rude, just using a little Goodhartian pedantry)

Firefox usage would be the most obvious metric.

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

#654

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

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.

Except that Mitchell Baker != Steve Jobs ... even remotely

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

#655

Post by roca »

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…

> if Eich wanted to be a contributor to that cause he could have done so silently.

He did not deliberately publicise his donation. It was not publicly known until 2012 when someone dug up the records.

> 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.

This is a lie.

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

#656

Post by bronson »

fierarul wrote: post #538
bawolff wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endowments are usually managed by comittee, so yes. However, if it becomes a more volunteer based organization, you tend to pay people in conferences and other infrastructure. Which is a very different type of thing. You still probably need someone to manage that, but its very different from being a CEO

So you replace 1 CEO with a committee of 6 people and save how much money?

If you pay each committee member $400_000/year, you’ll save $100_000/year. Sounds like a good move to me.

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

#657

Post by mlvljr »

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…

Elop ("Need more money after a painful divorce") style!

Respectable.

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

#658

Post by dcchambers »

avs733 wrote: post #617
dcchambers wrote: post #598

Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance? I don't root for anyone to lose their job, but in this case, it seems like the leadership of Mozilla is failing to lead them in the right direction. I don't see how that gets rewarded. If my performance metrics at work go down 85% - I'm probably getting fired. In this case, executive performance metrics should be closely tied…

>Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance? What are the implications of optimizing for those metrics over all others? Define performance? (not trying to be rude, just using a little Goodhartian pedantry)

In this case I think browser market share is a good example of overall company performance.

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

#659

Post by vxNsr »

jacquesm wrote: post #309
sangnoir wrote: post #286

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. I have a problem with characterizing Brendan Eich as a bigot for donating to a non-fringe political group. IIRC, the proposition campaign he donated to had close to a 50/50 split in support for/against. Eich's ouster cryst…

I'm still a FF evangelist though it is getting harder by the day. Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody. Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupi…

> Eich should have realized that his actions as CEO of a highly visible entity would be viewed in a different light than if he were merely just another nobody. Missing that was his crucial mistake, he could have made the donation anonymously, but decided to do it in his own name making it a given that this would be associated with Mozilla. That was stupid.

You do realize that all political donations in the US are not allowed to be anonymous right? This was years before citizens united, the only way to donate was through your own name.

Nothing you’ve said in this entire thread has made any sense, please reconsider demonizing someone you don’t know about issues you don’t understand with arguments that are false.

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

#660

Post by unethical_ban »

panpanna wrote: post #266
bambax wrote: 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.

This was not a useful comment. How is it a mess? What changed?
Post reply on HN