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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 4 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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falcolas ◴[15 Jan 20 20:44 UTC] No.22058292[source]▶
70 employees, at a grossly over-estimated cost of $200,000 a year each (QA "leads" would probably cost a fraction of that), would cost Mozilla about $14M to retain. They are retaining their $43M budget for blue sky research intact (per TFA).

It feels like a better compromise could have been made.

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ameshkov ◴[15 Jan 20 20:49 UTC] No.22058363[source]▶
This might be a sign for other employees that they need to focus on the things that can help Mozilla actually earn more and not just be a good guy. It may sound horrible, but considering their market share dynamics it makes sense.
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falcolas ◴[15 Jan 20 20:57 UTC] No.22058475[source]▶
Employees don't drive a large company's focus. Driving the focus and direction of the company is the job of Mozilla's leadership. It's the directors' job to transform that direction and focus into actionable plans, the managers' job to drive those plans, and the employee's job to implement the plans.

The employees, in all reality, don't have the power to drive the direction and focus of a large company; that's a benefit limited to startups and small businesses.

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1. asperous ◴[15 Jan 20 21:07 UTC] No.22058593[source]▶
Bower's 1970 book "Managing the Resource Allocation Process" discusses how in reality it's the other way around. Leadership often struggles to manage the company strategically. Often how employees are measured (in this case looking at who was let go) drives strategy. For example, if a company states privacy is it's #1 goal but bonuses on revenue generation, privacy efforts may go nowhere.

With that in mind I think the parent comment is right. Leadership can say what they will but it's ultimately up to the people doing the work that drives the actual strategy.

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2. falcolas ◴[15 Jan 20 21:27 UTC] No.22058845[source]▶
If it's the employees who are really driving the company strategy and focus... the board needs to fire the everliving fuck out of the leadership (and optionally find the nexii of communication at the employee level and promote them).

It's quite literally leadership's primary job to set the strategy and focus of the company. It's what they're being paid to do. If they aren't doing that, they need to be let go.

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3. asperous ◴[15 Jan 20 21:36 UTC] No.22058954[source]▶
It's a balance. Leadership does have a role here (and in some organizations like the military it is more strictly top down). But in most companies leadership can at most set goals, incentive behavior, and approve budgets and projects and it's ultimately up to the employees to implement and adapt strategy
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4. kamaal ◴[16 Jan 20 05:14 UTC] No.22061857{3}[source]▶
>>But in most companies leadership can at most set goals, incentive behavior, and approve budgets and projects and it's ultimately up to the employees to implement and adapt strategy

No, leadership isn't exactly a glorified supervision layer.

I've known of a case where a director refused to promote an employee, the employee escalated the case to HR. The case got investigated and director in his defence said the employee couldn't be promoted as he was doing the same task for months.

To the director's horror he was let go for not seeing why the employee had not automated his work. And why he hadn't proactively worked with stake holders to improve productivity. So as far as the employee was concerned he had done what he was asked to, and despite bringing up his promotion issue in 1-1's the managers hadn't told him anything about his work at all. And instead lauded for the good work and asked him to continue.

The decision was right because the next director who came in got this done.

The job of any who sits at the top is to take a high level view, and move things in the positive direction. Approving leaves, budgets and memos just happens to be a side gig at those levels. The real job is to make progress happen.