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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 2 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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iamleppert ◴[16 Jan 20 04:31 UTC] No.22061702[source]▶
Mitchell Baker should be ashamed of her performance at Mozilla. Serious missteps in the development of Firefox led to the rise of Google Chrome, and only recently (and arguably too little, too late) have they seen the light and prioritized the re-development of Firefox.

Nearly all of the other projects at Mozilla that aren't related to the browser itself have been abject failures. They have not only failed in their core product against Google, but have shown that they are completely incapable of innovation in other areas of tech.

Her letter reads like someone who is completely clueless. Getting rid of people while earmarking $40 million for a so-called "innovation fund" with no real strategy?

They are hoping some half-baked VPN product generates enough revenue to make them independent of Google's search deal? Please remember this post when that product fails to deliver. It's not a matter of time, it just makes no sense in any kind of timeline and at this point Mitchell Baker is grasping at straws.

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1. arendtio ◴[16 Jan 20 10:07 UTC] No.22063151[source]▶
So what would be your strategy to increase the Mozilla revenue?
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2. iamleppert ◴[18 Jan 20 21:23 UTC] No.22087319[source]▶
If I were Mozilla, I'd focus my efforts on creating a search engine. Search engine tech and computational resources are available these days and dare I say it's perfectly feasible to create an alternative to Google. In addition to that, create a Google docs or at least good Gmail competitor. They have the technical talent to do it, and they could capture a real market of people who would pay for such products, if done well, that are concerned with privacy and don't want to use Microsoft or Google products.