Mozilla lays off 70(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Mozilla lays off 70
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-waits-for-subscription-products-to-generate-revenue
904 comments
Well, it's been a truly amazing place to work, and I've enjoyed it so much, right up until being laid off today. Really the smartest and coolest engineers I've ever known and the best community! I have had my hand in shipping every version of Firefox since around version 30 and it's been great. Especially working in such an open environment. Onward to the next adventure.
I was at Mozilla for a while and it was a two-class system. The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-figures. This is not even included in comp. One time, the CFO sent out a missive urging everyone to stay in AirBnB to save money and the execs (literally the following week) booked $500/night rooms at a hotel in NYC. I think the moment that made it clear as day was during a trip to Hawaii for the company all hands. The plane was a 737 so you had to walk past first class. These all hands are a huge deal for families - many were struggling down the aisle, carrying booster seats, etc. And they were passing two of the C-levels sitting in giant first-class seats sipping tropical cocktails. The rule in the military is that men eat first, officers last. Mozilla has always reversed that rule and the result was a pretty toxic culture, all around.
Not sure of Mozilla’s financial or organizational structure but it seems to be part of a larger trend of de-emphasizing QA departments at software shops large and small over the past 10 or so years.
In many ways test automation tooling has become much easier to use, develop, and manage.
But I suspect the larger driving force is that it’s (arguably) a cost center for an org. The burden of ensuring software quality can be shifted to devs and PMs, though usually with mixed results.
For Mozilla, axing quality and security first is a bad look when those are crucial aspects of a privacy-first company value.
In many ways test automation tooling has become much easier to use, develop, and manage.
But I suspect the larger driving force is that it’s (arguably) a cost center for an org. The burden of ensuring software quality can be shifted to devs and PMs, though usually with mixed results.
For Mozilla, axing quality and security first is a bad look when those are crucial aspects of a privacy-first company value.
Brendan Eich tweeted that they laid off about 70 people:
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217517703914643456
This is about 7% of all their employees.
People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked.
A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...
> In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Baker specifically mentions the slow rollout of the organization’s new revenue-generating products as the reason for why it needed to take this decision
edit: fixed the numbers, added some more details.
This is about 7% of all their employees.
People report that a lot of QA, security, and release management folks were sacked.
A lot more details in the TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...
> In an internal memo, Mozilla chairwoman and interim CEO Mitchell Baker specifically mentions the slow rollout of the organization’s new revenue-generating products as the reason for why it needed to take this decision
edit: fixed the numbers, added some more details.
Look at the changes to the executive team at Mozilla in 2017 and 2018 if you want to see the root of the problem.
Look at the changes Chief People Office Michael D'Angelo introduced (after leaving Pinterest), especially the multi-tier bonus system that crystallized the executive hierarchy and made ironclad the gap between Mozilla leaders and the Mozilla proletariat. How much does he make?
Ask yourself- what value or improvement did Chris Lin, VP of Mozilla's horrid IT, hired from Facebook, bring to the company? And look at his overpaid group of Directors, who do not have a single win between them that improved Mozilla's bottom line. Why did they hire a leader from Facebook? Were they trying to sink the ship?
Ask yourself- with all of Mozilla's failed marketing initiatives, why has the CMO never been held to account?
There was great hope that Mitchell Baker would return and clean house where it was needed, starting with many of the execs. This layoff, with so far no indication of leaders being held to account, is a sign that things are not going to improve.
It's a shame, because the people of Mozilla are the finest people you could ever work with. They don't deserve this leadership. The rank and file at Mozilla are amazing, though some of the best were let go today.
Look at the changes Chief People Office Michael D'Angelo introduced (after leaving Pinterest), especially the multi-tier bonus system that crystallized the executive hierarchy and made ironclad the gap between Mozilla leaders and the Mozilla proletariat. How much does he make?
Ask yourself- what value or improvement did Chris Lin, VP of Mozilla's horrid IT, hired from Facebook, bring to the company? And look at his overpaid group of Directors, who do not have a single win between them that improved Mozilla's bottom line. Why did they hire a leader from Facebook? Were they trying to sink the ship?
Ask yourself- with all of Mozilla's failed marketing initiatives, why has the CMO never been held to account?
There was great hope that Mitchell Baker would return and clean house where it was needed, starting with many of the execs. This layoff, with so far no indication of leaders being held to account, is a sign that things are not going to improve.
It's a shame, because the people of Mozilla are the finest people you could ever work with. They don't deserve this leadership. The rank and file at Mozilla are amazing, though some of the best were let go today.
This feels really bad. I feel she seems to be hinting that they are cutting people in case they lose revenue.
As others have posted their financials: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201...
They seem to be very dependent on search engine revenue: 91% and 93% for their revenue. Once again, I feel she is worried Mozilla will be cut off very soon.
Still feels like really bad news for Firefox. Microsoft cut their QA people for Windows. Windows 10 to this day still has update issues.
I do agree that Mozilla needs more products to stay competitive. Especially when the Google docs team doesn't fix issues that make Google sheets very frustrating to enter data into with Firefox. Just listen to Linus(TechTips) complain about Google Calendar issues when he pays for the commercial version of GSuite.
I wonder if Mozilla gets cut off from search engine revenue means they will start to develop products/fund OSS competitors to GSuite?
Still, when you introduce new products, that is when you need Q/A the most.
However, Pocket is not one these products. I disable the pocket button on every new Firefox install I do. They have an entire page on it in their financial statement.
And I don't feel the CEO should be increasing her pay when the workforce suffers (from $2.3m to $2.5m). Nintendo's management took a pay cut during their Wii U years before the Switch. And that is what management in general should be doing well before a layout.
The Mozilla steering committee certainly didn't consider this when "we plan to eliminate about 70 roles from across MoCo... ...(were) considered as part of our 2020 planning and budgeting exercise only after all other avenues were explored."
As others have posted their financials: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2018/mozilla-fdn-201...
They seem to be very dependent on search engine revenue: 91% and 93% for their revenue. Once again, I feel she is worried Mozilla will be cut off very soon.
Still feels like really bad news for Firefox. Microsoft cut their QA people for Windows. Windows 10 to this day still has update issues.
I do agree that Mozilla needs more products to stay competitive. Especially when the Google docs team doesn't fix issues that make Google sheets very frustrating to enter data into with Firefox. Just listen to Linus(TechTips) complain about Google Calendar issues when he pays for the commercial version of GSuite.
I wonder if Mozilla gets cut off from search engine revenue means they will start to develop products/fund OSS competitors to GSuite?
Still, when you introduce new products, that is when you need Q/A the most.
However, Pocket is not one these products. I disable the pocket button on every new Firefox install I do. They have an entire page on it in their financial statement.
And I don't feel the CEO should be increasing her pay when the workforce suffers (from $2.3m to $2.5m). Nintendo's management took a pay cut during their Wii U years before the Switch. And that is what management in general should be doing well before a layout.
The Mozilla steering committee certainly didn't consider this when "we plan to eliminate about 70 roles from across MoCo... ...(were) considered as part of our 2020 planning and budgeting exercise only after all other avenues were explored."
I don't understand Mozilla. How did the go from a lightweight Mozilla Browser alternative to a company that spends $450m annually and dedicates $43m just for future endeavors? Why couldn't they just focus on making the best browser possible with a small dedicated team?
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.
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.
70 employees, at a grossly over-estimated cost of $200,000 a year each (QA "leads" would probably cost a fraction of that), would cost Mozilla about $14M to retain. They are retaining their $43M budget for blue sky research intact (per TFA).
It feels like a better compromise could have been made.
It feels like a better compromise could have been made.
> “You may recall that we expected to be earning revenue in 2019 and 2020 from new subscription products as well as higher revenue from sources outside of search. This did not happen
I don't want subscription garbage, and I don't want Firefox advertising stuff to me.
However, I have no idea how I'd try to fund Mozilla when most of their work is on a product that they give away for free.
I can't imagine that grants from foundations or the government could cover their budget, and I can't really see them being amazingly successful with apps (although I would pay for a bulletproof, high quality ad blocker for iPhone) or hardware (although Purism's phones and laptops seem kind of in Mozilla's ballpark, I doubt they are making much money.) Nobody wants to pay for web services, and it's hard to compete with the many cloud incumbents, so those don't really seem like a good options either. Running a consulting business to fund the browser doesn't seem like a winning idea. Development tools seem to be free from the likes of {Microsoft, Apple, Google} as well, so that doesn't seem like a great business. I can't imagine many people paying for Rust or webasm tools either. Perhaps web game development tools or platforms? Anyway, it's a hard problem.
So HN, does anyone have any actual, serious, good ideas on how Mozilla can make money and keep delivering a good Firefox browser (and Rust, webasm, etc.) for free?
I don't want subscription garbage, and I don't want Firefox advertising stuff to me.
However, I have no idea how I'd try to fund Mozilla when most of their work is on a product that they give away for free.
I can't imagine that grants from foundations or the government could cover their budget, and I can't really see them being amazingly successful with apps (although I would pay for a bulletproof, high quality ad blocker for iPhone) or hardware (although Purism's phones and laptops seem kind of in Mozilla's ballpark, I doubt they are making much money.) Nobody wants to pay for web services, and it's hard to compete with the many cloud incumbents, so those don't really seem like a good options either. Running a consulting business to fund the browser doesn't seem like a winning idea. Development tools seem to be free from the likes of {Microsoft, Apple, Google} as well, so that doesn't seem like a great business. I can't imagine many people paying for Rust or webasm tools either. Perhaps web game development tools or platforms? Anyway, it's a hard problem.
So HN, does anyone have any actual, serious, good ideas on how Mozilla can make money and keep delivering a good Firefox browser (and Rust, webasm, etc.) for free?
I'm looking forward to some paid products from Mozilla (including the vpn).
Privacy focused personal zeroknowledge cloud things are needed.
I'd love to have a more elaborate version of Firefox Sync that worked across chromium (and I'd pay for it).
The obvious calendar, mail, etc.
I'd pay for a zeroknowledge hosted Berners Lee Solid service.
Do this stuff and I'll pay well for it.
Privacy focused personal zeroknowledge cloud things are needed.
I'd love to have a more elaborate version of Firefox Sync that worked across chromium (and I'd pay for it).
The obvious calendar, mail, etc.
I'd pay for a zeroknowledge hosted Berners Lee Solid service.
Do this stuff and I'll pay well for it.
> All of this is part of the organization’s plans to become less reliant on income from search partnerships and to create more revenue channels. In 2018, the latest year for which Mozilla has published its financial records, about 91 percent of its royalty revenues came from search contracts.
This raises the question of what products Mozilla plans to make that will generate revenue. The article doesn't address this.
I found these after a quick search, all of which appear to depend on Firefox to some extent:
- VPN/password manager called Lockvise
- Pocket recommendations and sponsored content
- Firefox Monitor, "a free service which allows people to check whether their email address has been a part of a recent security breach"
- "DNS over HTTPS" and "Encrypted Server Name Indication", "... both of which we’ve partnered with Cloudflare to test in the U.S. market."
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/
This raises the question of what products Mozilla plans to make that will generate revenue. The article doesn't address this.
I found these after a quick search, all of which appear to depend on Firefox to some extent:
- VPN/password manager called Lockvise
- Pocket recommendations and sponsored content
- Firefox Monitor, "a free service which allows people to check whether their email address has been a part of a recent security breach"
- "DNS over HTTPS" and "Encrypted Server Name Indication", "... both of which we’ve partnered with Cloudflare to test in the U.S. market."
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/
Statement from Mozilla: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/01/15/readying-for-the-fu...
TechCrunch has more info:
"Mozilla lays off 70 as it waits for new products to generate revenue"
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...
"Mozilla lays off 70 as it waits for new products to generate revenue"
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...
To the 70: Thank you for contributing to such incredible software for all these years. Your contribution to my life is not insignificant. Good luck on your next chapter.
To Mozilla: Let's figure out this monetization thing. Heck, I'd pay for Firefox to keep it as great as it is and independent.
To Mozilla: Let's figure out this monetization thing. Heck, I'd pay for Firefox to keep it as great as it is and independent.
Besides donating and the as-yet-to-be-released VPN service, how else can we support Mozilla? I don't see anything they're actually selling and I hate for stuff like this to happen.
If you are a Mozilla product user, this is the link to donate to a great nonprofit. https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/?presets=50,30,20,10&amount...
I would have expected in that email from the CEO something like, "I will myself take a massive salary reduction and divide my salary by 2". But strangely, it's never something we see during mass layoffs... I mean her salary is pretty much the salary 15 to 20 software engineers.
I diligently donate to Mozilla, Wikimedia, and openbsd. After reading about executives and their largesse on various threads today, I do want to know: do donations to the Mozilla Foundation go towards paying the salaries and various expenses of the executives at Mozilla the corporate?
Mozilla should provide products and services that are one level above the cloud providers (AWS/Azure/GC) since it doesn't have the scale and datacenter resources to compete. Mozilla should provide at the product level that's consumer facing.
Mozilla can focus on online related communication and collaboration products. Some examples: email, messenger & audio/video conference, online identity, and security.
Email - make a web-based and an offline version.
Messenger & audio/video conference - can be easily tied in with the browser.
Online identity - people and company pay to have verified online identities and brands.
Security - encrypted communication/email/message, anonymous services, vpn, etc. SSL, domain name, DNS.
Mozilla can focus on online related communication and collaboration products. Some examples: email, messenger & audio/video conference, online identity, and security.
Email - make a web-based and an offline version.
Messenger & audio/video conference - can be easily tied in with the browser.
Online identity - people and company pay to have verified online identities and brands.
Security - encrypted communication/email/message, anonymous services, vpn, etc. SSL, domain name, DNS.
This article and thread has put a baad taste in my mouth regarding Firefox.
But like Tesla, I still want Firefox to succeed. I'm not sure I'll donate again however. They seem to be just fine on their own.
But like Tesla, I still want Firefox to succeed. I'm not sure I'll donate again however. They seem to be just fine on their own.
If Google moved to more in-house development of Chromium, there wouldn't be many scraps soon left for proponents of the open web to browse with... It's sad to see Microsoft as well as Opera and Brave picking Chromium for their engine when at least I think Gecko is still very much on par with web standards support. It feels like a more sensible choice, including for their own business safety in case Google does some sneaky move to "streamline their development" and "focus on the next generation of smartphones and Fuchsia OS" or something like that. That would be a power move we used to attribute to Microsoft in the past.
I wish Mozilla good luck although I'm shaken by these news and how far reaching the restructuring seems to be. I hope it's not the beginning of a negative spiral where they end up lacking manpower in development and QA to deliver a stable browser supporting the latest web standards and lagging behind, because then they're truly out. We should see already in a couple of years.
I wish Mozilla good luck although I'm shaken by these news and how far reaching the restructuring seems to be. I hope it's not the beginning of a negative spiral where they end up lacking manpower in development and QA to deliver a stable browser supporting the latest web standards and lagging behind, because then they're truly out. We should see already in a couple of years.
Something I noticed about Firefox today, when I was trying to troubleshoot something:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1601925
There are quite a few places where the browser makes requests and they are not logged in the Network section of the Inspector.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1601925
There are quite a few places where the browser makes requests and they are not logged in the Network section of the Inspector.
Interesting announcement not two weeks after announcing that the MoFo board would be expanded: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/01/08/expanding-mozillas-...
This is sad. I don't really have any interest in whatever 'services' Firefox has in mind but I'd actually pay for a good browser - maybe a monthly fee. I really use no local apps these days - everything is IN my browser so whatever I was paying for apps I'd be happy to chuck towards a secure, updated browser...
Mozilla blog update: "Readying for the Future at Mozilla"
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/01/15/readying-for-the-fu...
Some of my friends are affected; does anyone have advice from experience that could help?
Too many chiefs, and they can the good braves. Top heavy org chart is going to commence years of random re-orgs to dance around the real problem: management. Firefox is of course even more likely to founder going forward.
I don't think they've had any vision ever since Eich left.
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.