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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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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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deepaksurti ◴[16 Jan 20 03:51 UTC] No.22061537[source]▶
Many corporate leaders are Peters at work [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

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klagermkii ◴[16 Jan 20 05:26 UTC] No.22061913[source]▶
I would think the Peter Principle would be better represented if there was someone who was a star on the technical side, but messed up as the CEO in a role they couldn't handle. i.e. if Brendan Eich was CEO and this happened it would be a Peter Principle moment.

All these senior leadership people seem to be straight from the management track. Doesn't seem like they showed their excellence in another discipline and were then misplaced as CEO.

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1. raxxorrax ◴[16 Jan 20 07:49 UTC] No.22062450[source]▶
Through the bank my experience is that a technical background with someone growing into a leadership role ultimately creates better results. People whose only skill is "leadership" tend to perform pretty badly.

But the Peter principle, doubtful if it even can be taken seriously, doesn't say anything about this specifically.

I don't know anything about Eich, but I don't really see how he would have been bad for Mozilla as a CEO. He had some controversial views as some have reported, but I don't really think that would have been very relevant, especially if so many people disagree.

All that aside, that the execs at Mozilla get millions and they still lay off 70 people is bad leadership. Really, really bad leadership. And the recent focus seem to underline that failure in my opinion.

Mozilla has done incredible things for the net and technology. Sadly, I think this is subject to change.

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2. pbhjpbhj ◴[16 Jan 20 09:02 UTC] No.22062800[source]▶
Surely the Mozilla execs don't take millions? And beg for charity??

I know Mozilla Corp/Org are technically split, but if one head of Cerberus ate all the food surely it doesn't still need feeding.

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3. zobzu ◴[16 Jan 20 10:20 UTC] No.22063209[source]▶
they do take millions. the money they take is basically from Google's search deal (thought technically a few other sources too).

The money you donate only goes to the foundation, which does not pay the exec, so any donation does not actually go to exec. The donations are required for the foundation to function at all, regardless of how well the corporation does.

to be honest, the whole thing is a bit of a hack though, because really mozilla functions 100% like a corporation even if they had a real foundation inside. its just a way to ensure that the board is Mitchell Baker - not a bunch of people who want the company to profit. this has good and bad sides, and right now we're definitely seeing the bad sides: exec get paid 800k to 2500k (Mitchell), senior devs get fired for making - i bet, 100k to 300k.

foundations are made to be places where you make the world a better place without having the "i want to make money" motto and that's not what Mozilla does. Mozilla wants money to pay execs and keep on surviving. Many other foundations have similar hacks (or arguably, scams!). The other advantage is that the foundation side does not pay tax of course.

4. spease ◴[16 Jan 20 21:21 UTC] No.22069086[source]▶
> He had some controversial views as some have reported, but I don't really think that would have been very relevant, especially if so many people disagree.

As far as I know, he never expressed what his “views” were. People just found he donated $1000 (which was .002% of the total funds raised) towards a proposition opposing same-sex marriage. There didn’t seem to be anyone who had worked with him, regardless of orientation, who felt uncomfortable with him, or were even aware of it. His contributions having an effect were gated by a democratic vote, and his financial contribution was so small that I can’t imagine it having a substantial effect on the outcome.

To me the fact that he had the maturity to restrict his political discourse to the same means available to any other voter, to his private life, and was discreet enough that nobody knew about it for years, made him look better. Mozilla is supposed to be making the internet accessible to everybody, even people who hold conflicting views.

The quote comes to mind:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”