←back to thread

Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
Show context
petagonoral ◴[] 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 #
shawndrost ◴[] No.22059281[source]
The person we're talking about is Mitchell Baker, who has spent over 20 years contributing to Mozilla, including years as a volunteer. She has been on Time's 100 most influential people list. She has directly authored many foundational pieces of Mozilla and (arguably) the internet. She is the founding CEO of the Mozilla Corporation, which pays her paycheck from its ~$500M in revenue. Mozilla Corp is the highly-profitable source of the $368 million in Foundation assets that parent cited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker

I understand why people are generally peeved about executive compensation, but this conversation is very rote and this is a particularly flamebait-y framing of it.

replies(9): >>22059368 #>>22059473 #>>22059520 #>>22059686 #>>22059813 #>>22060258 #>>22060372 #>>22061707 #>>22061954 #
phonon ◴[] No.22059686[source]
She also wrote this incredibly rude and grotesque obituary for Gervase Markham after he died of cancer (working for Mozilla until the end). You are welcome to disagree, but Gerv contributed just as much to Mozilla as Mitchell did.

https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2018/08/07/in-memoriam-gerva...

replies(10): >>22059816 #>>22059874 #>>22059934 #>>22060260 #>>22060898 #>>22060990 #>>22061636 #>>22061657 #>>22062741 #>>22063069 #
catalogia ◴[] No.22059816[source]
That's appalling. How did that make people still working at Mozilla feel? I can't imagine working under somebody like that.
replies(4): >>22060453 #>>22060715 #>>22060869 #>>22061051 #
1. 9152ba83773b ◴[] No.22060715[source]
Gerv's behavior would have led to him being fired a long time ago in any other company. He was a toxic employee. MoCo did him and his family a favor to keep him on the payroll until his death.
replies(2): >>22060749 #>>22063314 #
2. catalogia ◴[] No.22060749[source]
It would have been better to fire him when he was alive than to criticize him after he was dead. The former would have been productive, while the later is just distasteful.
replies(2): >>22060876 #>>22061635 #
3. 9152ba83773b ◴[] No.22060876[source]
I don't disagree they should have done that. I guess they didn't want to look like the bad guys that are firing a dying man.
4. asdfasgasdgasdg ◴[] No.22061635[source]
Just speaking for myself here, but if someone would like to take adverse action against me, if they're willing to postpone it until after I'm dead, I'd vastly prefer that. Please and thank you. It makes no difference to me if you piss on my grave.

That being said, I sure as hell wouldn't write that obit, even for someone I hated. If I didn't have anything positive to say about the person, I wouldn't write anything. There is no upside to this kind of handling of the situation.

replies(1): >>22063139 #
5. ◴[] No.22063139{3}[source]
6. mda ◴[] No.22063314[source]
Doesn't explain hostile obituary from Ceo.