6 ms·

Just before you do, have a read through who Mozilla is in 2021[0] > "Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's top executive, was paid $2.4m in 2018, [...] Payments to Baker h

Just before you do, have a read through who Mozilla is in 2021[0] > "Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's top executive, was paid $2.4m in 2018, [...] Payments to Baker have more than doubled in the last five years." > "Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people." [0] https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

seoaeu 5y ago
I never understood why people were so upset at Mozilla's CEO earning a couple million per year in salary. Seems like a rather reasonable rate for running a medium size company that doesn't give out stock options/RCUs
- lowercased 5y ago
  I suspect it's at least partially the 'giving a raise/increase while also firing people at the same time' optics which doesn't sit well with folks. It doesn't actually strike me as 'reasonable rate' for a company which is losing market share with their main products, has a history of multiple failed product/service launches, and is having to fire people to cut costs. I (and many others) could get the same results for a mere $700k/year.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I see your $700K/year, and raise with an offer to do the same job of losing users and starting multiple failed products/services for $650K/year.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Hell, I'll almost certainly fail, but I've at least got some ideas to try out to (sloooowly) turn the ship around, for that rate. "Keep on truckin'" clearly isn't working.
  - KMnO4 5y ago
    A different way to look at it is that the CEO provides >$2M in value to the company, whereas many of the engineers were not providing their $100k+ salary of value.
    - burnished 5y ago
      Do they, though? That seems like a pretty hot take.
      - KMnO4 5y ago
        I have no idea, since I'm not the Mozilla exec responsible for those decisions. It's a hot take, but it's not my take.
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    > It doesn't actually strike me as 'reasonable rate' [...] I (and many others) could get the same results for a mere $700k/year. Surely, you can see the flaw in this logic though? If you set the salary too low, then only unqualified people will apply, and you'll be guaranteed to get bad results. You have to pay a competitive salary if you want even a chance of getting a skilled leader. Worse, it is harder turn around a company that is doing poorly than to cruise along at the helm of a well performing one. Which means that you both want to have higher standards when selecting a CEO of a poorly performing company, and also have to pay a premium to attract qualified candidates at all.
    - phonon 5y ago
      Except she is the one who has been overseeing this slide into irrelevancy for many years now....for whatever reason the Board, instead of replacing her, rewards her.
- quesera 5y ago
  It's because Mozilla is visibly, painfully, repeatedly, and incomprehensibly, grossly mismanaged. They have an enormous budget, but are funded from basically a single source, and the future of that funding is not guaranteed. They have dramatically dwindling market share. This is critical because their voice in the future of the web could easily be drowned out by the interests of Google-Apple-Microsoft. Their non-browser projects are inconsistently conceived, and unreliably maintained. These situations have been created and compounded under the direction of their CEO. They have no roadmap to fix these issues, any of which could be fatal. Mozilla is our best hope for the future of the free web, and their gross mismanagement makes me very fearful. Every single year, they are funded well enough to remake the organization, and every single year they do not. I say this as a loyal Netscape/Mozilla/Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox user since always. I say this with a continued belief that Brendan Eich created a situation (or a situation was created around Brendan Eich, if you prefer) where he could not have effectively led Mozilla. And I say this with awareness that 99% of us would probably fail to lead Mozilla (it is a delicate balancing act) -- but that only the current management has dipositively done so. If there was any accountability to users or shareholders, the Mozilla executive team would have been replaced years ago. It is difficult to watch this astonishing waste of resources, and massive dereliction of duty to the public.
  - wisniewskit 5y ago
    But who should she be replaced by? It's not like Mozilla just cherry-picked her over a sea of other amazing, willing-to-be-underpaid candidates who were all clamouring for the job. Being a CEO during tough times sucks. I think Eich was actually lucky, in a twisted way. It's not like he managed to turn their fortunes around while he was their CTO for so long. He wasn't some powerless underdog who would have gained special superpowers as their CEO. Even if he had avoided controversy to become their CEO, he would almost certainly have just been the one we're scapegoating now instead of Baker. She was our angle when Mozilla was founded and when Microsoft needed an antitrust spanking, and now she's uor devil.
    - quesera 5y ago
      I don't know who should be Mozilla CEO. But I know that the current management is failing in unexciting and repetitive ways. Someone with new ideas should be Mozilla CEO. Someone who believes in the mission of the organization, and will use the organization's vast resources to chart a new path that respects that mission. An executive search would have no trouble finding quaified candidates at that pay level. They might not work out either. But failing in the same way, over and over, is silly magnified to horrifying due to the importance of Mozilla to the web and the public. I don't entirely agree about Eich. He was respected in the org, and obviously has ideas that exceed Mozilla's charter. A CTO is limited in their strategic scope, so I don't think his years working for Baker indicate he would fail in the same way she has.

seoaeu 5y ago

I never understood why people were so upset at Mozilla's CEO earning a couple million per year in salary. Seems like a rather reasonable rate for running a medium size company that doesn't give out stock options/RCUs

lowercased 5y ago
I suspect it's at least partially the 'giving a raise/increase while also firing people at the same time' optics which doesn't sit well with folks. It doesn't actually strike me as 'reasonable rate' for a company which is losing market share with their main products, has a history of multiple failed product/service launches, and is having to fire people to cut costs. I (and many others) could get the same results for a mere $700k/year.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I see your $700K/year, and raise with an offer to do the same job of losing users and starting multiple failed products/services for $650K/year.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Hell, I'll almost certainly fail, but I've at least got some ideas to try out to (sloooowly) turn the ship around, for that rate. "Keep on truckin'" clearly isn't working.
- KMnO4 5y ago
  A different way to look at it is that the CEO provides >$2M in value to the company, whereas many of the engineers were not providing their $100k+ salary of value.
  - burnished 5y ago
    Do they, though? That seems like a pretty hot take.
    - KMnO4 5y ago
      I have no idea, since I'm not the Mozilla exec responsible for those decisions. It's a hot take, but it's not my take.
- seoaeu 5y ago
  > It doesn't actually strike me as 'reasonable rate' [...] I (and many others) could get the same results for a mere $700k/year. Surely, you can see the flaw in this logic though? If you set the salary too low, then only unqualified people will apply, and you'll be guaranteed to get bad results. You have to pay a competitive salary if you want even a chance of getting a skilled leader. Worse, it is harder turn around a company that is doing poorly than to cruise along at the helm of a well performing one. Which means that you both want to have higher standards when selecting a CEO of a poorly performing company, and also have to pay a premium to attract qualified candidates at all.
  - phonon 5y ago
    Except she is the one who has been overseeing this slide into irrelevancy for many years now....for whatever reason the Board, instead of replacing her, rewards her.
quesera 5y ago
It's because Mozilla is visibly, painfully, repeatedly, and incomprehensibly, grossly mismanaged. They have an enormous budget, but are funded from basically a single source, and the future of that funding is not guaranteed. They have dramatically dwindling market share. This is critical because their voice in the future of the web could easily be drowned out by the interests of Google-Apple-Microsoft. Their non-browser projects are inconsistently conceived, and unreliably maintained. These situations have been created and compounded under the direction of their CEO. They have no roadmap to fix these issues, any of which could be fatal. Mozilla is our best hope for the future of the free web, and their gross mismanagement makes me very fearful. Every single year, they are funded well enough to remake the organization, and every single year they do not. I say this as a loyal Netscape/Mozilla/Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox user since always. I say this with a continued belief that Brendan Eich created a situation (or a situation was created around Brendan Eich, if you prefer) where he could not have effectively led Mozilla. And I say this with awareness that 99% of us would probably fail to lead Mozilla (it is a delicate balancing act) -- but that only the current management has dipositively done so. If there was any accountability to users or shareholders, the Mozilla executive team would have been replaced years ago. It is difficult to watch this astonishing waste of resources, and massive dereliction of duty to the public.
- wisniewskit 5y ago
  But who should she be replaced by? It's not like Mozilla just cherry-picked her over a sea of other amazing, willing-to-be-underpaid candidates who were all clamouring for the job. Being a CEO during tough times sucks. I think Eich was actually lucky, in a twisted way. It's not like he managed to turn their fortunes around while he was their CTO for so long. He wasn't some powerless underdog who would have gained special superpowers as their CEO. Even if he had avoided controversy to become their CEO, he would almost certainly have just been the one we're scapegoating now instead of Baker. She was our angle when Mozilla was founded and when Microsoft needed an antitrust spanking, and now she's uor devil.
  - quesera 5y ago
    I don't know who should be Mozilla CEO. But I know that the current management is failing in unexciting and repetitive ways. Someone with new ideas should be Mozilla CEO. Someone who believes in the mission of the organization, and will use the organization's vast resources to chart a new path that respects that mission. An executive search would have no trouble finding quaified candidates at that pay level. They might not work out either. But failing in the same way, over and over, is silly magnified to horrifying due to the importance of Mozilla to the web and the public. I don't entirely agree about Eich. He was respected in the org, and obviously has ideas that exceed Mozilla's charter. A CTO is limited in their strategic scope, so I don't think his years working for Baker indicate he would fail in the same way she has.