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0 pointszobzu5y ago0 comments

After several years at Mozilla I eventually realized that the leader, not to name them, cares about fame, power and money, even more than "evil big corporations". That it makes a browser that is good for the web is a side effect.

The people that brought balance got gradually left go or left out of disgust, allowing that leader to grow their compensation unchecked (2.5M a year now).

I had a lot of respect for them when I joined, and was just feeling empty and disappointed when I left.

One all hands speech that is stuck with me was the one about "how Mozilla needed to participate to something with the United Nations and that's really important" when their wanted to join the UN board. This quickly got covered up and they also did not get to join the UN board.

Basically, follow the money, as usual. I'll be on the lookout for a post from Eich on the subject, I guess.

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btown5y ago

Not the parent poster, but I'll provide https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-2018-fo... (page 52) as accompanying evidence specifically for the $2.5M claim. Mitchell Baker's compensation totalled $2.48M in 2018, with the second-highest-paid executive, Mark Surman, making only $322k.

That page does note that Baker was "paid only by related for-profit" - but at best that introduces a conflict of interest.

As I've never been at Mozilla, I can't confirm any of the other details. And I'll say that any large-scale technology company needs to strike a balance between product focus and the degree to which it controls the conversation around its space, and Mozilla's investment in things like Rust will have a lasting positive impact on the software engineering discipline. But it's also clear that the environment was toxic enough to make at least one person (the parent poster) feel this way, and that itself is a yellow flag.

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rocho5y ago

2.5M/year?! That's insane!

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