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    Mozilla lays off 70

    (techcrunch.com)
    929 points ameshkov | 17 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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    petagonoral ◴[15 Jan 20 21:03 UTC] No.22058534[source]▶
    in 2018, mozilla had 368 million USD in assets:

    2018 financials: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201...

    wow, 2.5 million for the executive chair of Mozilla in 2018. is that person really bringing 2.5 millions dollar worth of value to the company. this is in addition to the 2.x million from the year before. 10s of million exfiltrated out of a non-profit by one person over the last few years. nice job if you can get it.

    edit: 1 million USD in 2016 and before.jumped to 2.3 million in 2017! pg8 of form 990 available at https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/about/public-records/

    replies(12): >>22058581 #>>22058625 #>>22058647 #>>22058731 #>>22058749 #>>22058837 #>>22058864 #>>22058906 #>>22059064 #>>22059281 #>>22059390 #>>22060078 #
    1. ntsplnkv2 ◴[15 Jan 20 21:11 UTC] No.22058625[source]▶
    > is that person really bringing 2.5 millions dollar worth of value to the company.

    Probably not but that is what the market cost is. I have no doubt the executive chair of Mozilla has other offers.

    replies(6): >>22058775 #>>22059006 #>>22059011 #>>22059124 #>>22059145 #>>22060180 #
    2. demygale ◴[15 Jan 20 21:22 UTC] No.22058775[source]▶
    I’ll do it for 1.5.
    replies(2): >>22058951 #>>22059013 #
    3. koonsolo ◴[15 Jan 20 21:36 UTC] No.22058951[source]▶
    Your price is lower, but maybe your cost is higher.
    4. csdreamer7 ◴[15 Jan 20 21:40 UTC] No.22059006[source]▶
    I disagree. The CEO seems to be hinting at lean years ahead. She should be cutting her pay instead. Like Nintendo's management did during their Wii U years.
    replies(2): >>22059175 #>>22059256 #
    5. plufz ◴[15 Jan 20 21:40 UTC] No.22059011[source]▶
    There are surely other studies but according to an MSCI-study the correlation between ceo salary and company performance is negative. Guessing there is some lower limit though. https://www.msci.com/www/research-paper/are-ceos-paid-for-pe...
    6. coldtea ◴[15 Jan 20 21:40 UTC] No.22059013[source]▶
    That would be a bargain if you had other offers for more.
    7. thatfrenchguy ◴[15 Jan 20 21:50 UTC] No.22059124[source]▶
    Given their results that person is clearly not worth that money. I’d feel terrible as a CEO laying off those people while not docking my own pay.
    8. fauigerzigerk ◴[15 Jan 20 21:52 UTC] No.22059145[source]▶
    >Probably not but that is what the market cost is.

    Is it really? The average pay for the CEO of a company of Mozilla's size is somewhere around $800,000 according to [1]. And a pretty large chunk of that is performance related.

    Of course salaries may vary a lot between industries, but given Mozilla's performance, their CEO's salary appears to be on the high side.

    [1] https://chiefexecutive.net/ceo-and-senior-executive-compensa...

    replies(2): >>22059852 #>>22060408 #
    9. kleer001 ◴[15 Jan 20 21:55 UTC] No.22059175[source]▶
    Sadly that kind of work ethic (and honor) is not present enough in the west.
    replies(1): >>22059527 #
    10. bob33212 ◴[15 Jan 20 22:02 UTC] No.22059256[source]▶
    It would be interesting to see if the CEO bailed if her pay was cut in half. Many CEOs are not in a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. So they can walk away if you cut their pay without looking like an asshole. Then the board is stuck looking for a replacement who will accept 1.25M and the expectation that it could get cut again if the company doesn't turn around.
    11. icebraining ◴[15 Jan 20 22:30 UTC] No.22059527{3}[source]▶
    Nonsense, there have been multiple cases in the west, e.g. John Chambers at Cisco, Michael Kneeland at United Rentals, Dan Price at Gravity Payments, Nicholas Woodman at GoPro.
    replies(1): >>22059718 #
    12. hinkley ◴[15 Jan 20 22:53 UTC] No.22059718{4}[source]▶
    Maybe it's like when a store has 20% off sale a couple weeks after they raised their prices 10%. Yeah, it's still a sale, it's just not as big of a price cut as you're making it out to be.

    Raise your salary, sock some money away, then take a big public paycut now that your house is paid off.

    replies(1): >>22061278 #
    13. fralewsmi ◴[15 Jan 20 23:10 UTC] No.22059852[source]▶
    Less true if you consider only tech ceo salaries
    14. bscphil ◴[15 Jan 20 23:50 UTC] No.22060180[source]▶
    > Probably not but that is what the market cost is. I have no doubt the executive chair of Mozilla has other offers.

    This is a dangerous limb to go out on an HN, but what if they just didn't have a CEO? Do you think the quality of the resulting product would be significantly worse?

    15. geoelectric ◴[16 Jan 20 00:23 UTC] No.22060408[source]▶
    Besides the fact tech skews much higher, especially tech in SV, Mozilla doesn't have stock or equity to pass around, so has historically had relatively high cash compensation for its size instead.

    I think that has become less true over the years, but it does tend to inflate salary or salary+bonus numbers unless you compare to total comp elsewhere (including parachutes and other bonuses that may not make these sheets).

    replies(1): >>22062562 #
    16. dorfsmay ◴[16 Jan 20 02:52 UTC] No.22061278{5}[source]▶
    Ok. So right now, as they are letting 70 people go, and obviously not doing so well, would be a good time to take a big public pay cut.
    17. fauigerzigerk ◴[16 Jan 20 08:15 UTC] No.22062562{3}[source]▶
    The numbers I quoted include new stock/equity as well as equity gains.

    Also, Mozilla is a rather unusual tech company in many ways. Leading Mozilla comes with unique opportunities not easily found elsewhere. Monetary compensation is not the only incentive for people.