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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

#861
post #408
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…

I use that number because a few years ago when the then-ceo had our compensation structure examined, I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much.

Well...bye.

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

#862
post #25

Pretty sad because it is the only privacy oriented browser left. Safari has dropped support for any privacy oriented extensions, and while Chrome might support them, everything you do with it goes through Google anyway. That while Firefox can run uBlock Origin, has the Facebook container built in and you can even install a 3rd party Google container.

Brave (which is led by Br. E. who was fired from Mozilla) is privacy oriented.

Eich resigned. He doesn't like people saying he was fired.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12590287

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

#863
post #278
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the frustration, it's unclear to me what the expected solution is for Mozilla. Pay the CEO less until the company does better? Ok but the CEO will presumably just find a higher paying job elsewhere. Then what? Find a cheaper CEO? How does that help fix the slipping market share for Firefox?

Modern CEO pay is a cargo-cult. Companies pay CEO insane amounts because "everybody else does it" and "it helps hire the best". These theories are untested, except that we now know for certain that paying $2.5M doesn't guarantee that the CEO is any good. I would bet you can hire an excellent, technically competent CEO for Mozilla for $250k a year.

Mozilla's last three CEOs (Baker, Beard and Eich) all had worked at Mozilla before. Mozilla appears unable to recruit outside CEOs even with its current CEO compensation.

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

#864
post #291

My case might be somewhat niche, but as a developer, I find myself really struggling to use Firefox for development, due to the awkwardness of the developer tools (or perhaps a lack of familiarity) This makes it annoying to go from work mode to personal browsing mode, and so every time I try to make the switch to Firefox, I eventually revert back. Then I discovered Brave, and was immediately familiar. Haven't used Ch…

People who mostly use Chrome's developer tools say Firefox's are awkward. People who mostly use Firefox's developer tools say Chrome's are awkward. People who use both say they have different good and bad parts.

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

#865
post #619
post #575

> 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.

[flagged]

Rights for me but not for thee!

Funny thing there's a certain document that says "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" and that document, by some weird mix of circumstances, happens to be the Supreme Law of the country. But who cares, right? It's all persecution complex when the rights I personally don't care about are attacked. Only rights that are important to me personally are sacred.

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

#866
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…

> 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.

To give context, Baker's annual salary is $2.5 million.

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

#867
post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Oh no. While I am absolutely pissed ( to say the least ) that Nokia was sold to Microsoft and Yahoo couldn't turn its ship around. I dont think both CEO were doing in their own interest or another companies interest. Nokia refused to use Android. ( Which was what really killed Nokia ) That was only two possible outcome, either go full force with Symbian or partner with Microsoft. I mean there are so many wrong with N…

Nokia was pathological before Elop arrived, but it was still huge, and a huge name. There was more than enough time and money to turn it around. Instead he released his "burning platforms" memo that made everything worse.

From the outset it looked (from the outside) exactly like his goal was as described - torpedo the company and get it bought by Microsoft, returning to the mothership in the process.

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

#868

> 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.

The last CEO and Founder was outed because he donated to a Christian Organization and the Firefox code of conduct was used against him saying this was discrimination against gays.

So the CEO left and started Brave and Firefox is now imploding.

Good. Let Firefox burn. They should have never weaponized their code of conduct.

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

#869

An honest question: we're seeing many "independent" browsers that are basically a wrapper around Chromium (Brave, Vivaldi, even Edge now) -- does anyone know why there aren't any (that I know of) similar initiatives based on Firefox?

There are a few, like GNU IceCat or the Tor Browser.

Those are basically patch sets for Firefox. Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge only use the same engine.

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

#870

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…

This is utter BS - not from you, but from the marketplace and economic theory. What's being created here s additional cost, which is then being parlayed as a proxy for value based on the idea that there is normally a rough equilibrium between the two.
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