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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 10 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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sstangl ◴[15 Jan 20 23:42 UTC] No.22060115[source]▶
I'm one of the 70. There were no signs that this was imminent, although Mozilla has been struggling financially for many years. I expected that it would happen eventually; I'm relatively well-prepared for it; and it's not too shocking. I did however expect that there would be some warning signs in the lead-up, but that was not the case.

I was working on Cranelift, the WebAssembly compiler that is also a plausible future backend for Rust debug mode. Before that, I worked on the SpiderMonkey JITs for 9 years. If anyone has need for a senior compiler engineer with 10 years of experience writing fast, parallel code, please do let me know.

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_kp6z ◴[16 Jan 20 00:22 UTC] No.22060406[source]▶
Sounds like a pretty clueless layoff, I guess I expected better from Mozilla than usual corporate derp. If there was truly no dead weight, surely the management could have scaled back their own comp for misdirecting the company? Very few people understand what it means to be a leader in corporate world.
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1. scarface74 ◴[16 Jan 20 00:42 UTC] No.22060544[source]▶
How much could they have scaled backed their comp to save 70 jobs?
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2. mcny ◴[16 Jan 20 00:48 UTC] No.22060584[source]▶
If they scaled back their own compensation maybe it would be half of seventy? Better than inadvertently laying off someone you need I would imagine...
3. Aeolun ◴[16 Jan 20 01:02 UTC] No.22060667[source]▶
Is 70x a strange multiple for an executive to make? I’m sure I’ve heard stories of more.

That said, I doubt the executives at Mozilla make north of 7M

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4. 9152ba83773b ◴[16 Jan 20 01:05 UTC] No.22060686[source]▶
Mozilla has way too many VP and above employees that are useless (check what the once VP engineering, then interim CTO, then fellow is actually doing for instance). They should let go a few, but as far as I know, none has been fired. Gotta keep getting twice the bonus percentage as regular ICs...
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5. inferiorhuman ◴[16 Jan 20 03:10 UTC] No.22061356[source]▶
Well a bit further down Mitchell Baker is being skewered for making $2,500,000 annually. I'd assume that the multiplier at Mozilla is much, much lower than 70x.
6. jimmydorry ◴[16 Jan 20 06:23 UTC] No.22062123[source]▶
Hardly any executive is just getting paid 7m in cash. They are typically paid in financial instruments that are time locked for several years. The media however, will go bananas on reporting about how they are paid crazy amounts when these instruments are finally unlocked, ignoring the tax implications, the lack liquidity and massive risk involved, and also just how much the rest of the market has increased during the time period of those instruments being locked.

When you pay yours executives a modest amount using such a method, it's often very feasible for this to be a massive windfall at the time of maturity (e.g. $1 options becoming $6, etc.).

7. whatthefoxer ◴[16 Jan 20 07:24 UTC] No.22062329[source]▶
You mean ekr yea? I don't know what he's doing either or why he's been promoted along the way. Nobody really knows.
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8. whatthefoxer ◴[16 Jan 20 07:25 UTC] No.22062333[source]▶
Mozilla has no equity so they make up for it in cash.. well for executives mainly. This makes for lofty salaries
9. kabes ◴[16 Jan 20 08:04 UTC] No.22062508[source]▶
For a single executive yes. But all of them combined could add up to 70x
10. 9152ba83773b ◴[16 Jan 20 22:42 UTC] No.22069813{3}[source]▶
No, not ekr. There's much worse.