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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

#801
post #577
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suspect she's been in there for a very long time, is tired, and just want to cash out. She sees her friends working for the likes of Google who made 50+ millions during certain years and see her small 2.5M as nothing.

She's a lawyer. She got the Mozilla deal out of Netscape and AOL. That's the highlight of her career and what she's good at too - that and public speaking. For what it's worth she even recognized this in the past and stepped down as CEO before - but stayed as Chairwoman of course and kept getting the salary.

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

#802

They had a GREAT CEO. Brendan Eich. He not only was heavily involved with destroying IE's monopoly, he was able to start Brave in a punishing market (competing against Google, Apple, and his own FF) and made it a contender. But, he wasn't woke enough. And for that, everyone will now pay dearly. I daresay, learning that someone else is entitled to a competing view is difficult. Allowing others to have a view other tha…

> Mr. Eich once gave $1K to a cause that was anti-gay. And $2.1K to a prop 8 supporter [0] > He backtracked and apologized but was cancelled anyways. This is lie and you are re-writing history. I can find no such statement from him. In fact all he said was he wanted to "express my sorrow at having caused pain" [1], the classic "I'm sorry your were offended by that" non-apology. He has never stated that his support of…

I honestly do not understand. He said his personal opinions are not going to affect his decisions. And I'm sure he can believe in whatever he wants - in Christ, Flat Earth and Aliens if he wants.

As outsider it looks like in recent years the most vocal shaming is not of gay or fat but shaming of whoever does not participate in shaming. I really hope that these are not true representatives of LGBT community.

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

#803
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

It's what Brave is, but it didn't use Firefox source code.

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

#804
post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remember Stephen Elop, former CEO of Nokia? He did an awesome job in reducing Nokia's marketshare (and hence, its market capital) to make the company ready to be acquired by his mother company, Microsoft, at a very low price (cheaper than just one app—WhatsApp which was sold to Facebook). Or remember Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer? She also did a great job at making the company ready to be sold out to Verizon at low price.…

It's easy to say this stuff looking in the rearview mirror. Nokia and BlackBerry saw their platforms as their moat that enabled the company. It wasn't obvious that Apple and Google would eat up the market.

Yahoo was similar in a way -- they built a whole array of services around identity way before Google did. Ultimately it didn't work out well for the company.

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

#805
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…

If it's unfair on your families to be making only a million dollars a year instead of two and a half, what does that say about the ~99% of America who makes less than a million dollars a year?

The families of the workers who made 200k however.. well they can f* right off and find a new job. Their family doesn't matter.

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

#806

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…

>Mozilla stock Stock?

Stocks and Shares:

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/difference-between-...

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

#807
Would enough users pay for an open source privacy browser? (I donate a little each month -- are there enough others?)

How many employees would it really take just to evolve Firefox and MDN?

The executive compensation seems really out of line. Could a lower paid staff and executive team do the job? Possibly by relocating the company?

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

#808

I'm two fences on Firefox doing "too many unrelated things" as the article suggests. Firefox OS has been pretty much unsuccessful, but it sort of made sense? It started to be made when Firefox was still on top on desktop, but mobile started eating its lunch; and it was clear that Firefox need to do something about it, or the future will be all Chrome and Safari, on the two locked-down platforms. Which eventually happ…

As someone who likes sites like reddit for the content sharing but hates the time sink the comments section becomes I love Pocket for delivering me highish quality articles and news that I don't have to worry about gettin sucked into some flame war over.

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

#809

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…

Google has done an incredible job of monetizing Chrome, I think it's a mistake to think that Firefox is somehow incapable of this.

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

#810

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 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…

> 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.

If the CEO is a majority or major shareholder, they will be on the board, point blank.

If they are not, the roles should be separate.

Their patron should rectify this, but it's possible they don't care.

The 'plan' may be to kill Firefox.

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