Mozilla CEO pockets a packet, asks biz to pick up pace the 'Mozilla way'

Mozilla closed out 2023 with a report that dodges its flatlining browser market share and Mozilla.social beta in favor of calls for a faster pace from its highly paid CEO. According to the company's filings, Mitchell Baker's compensation went from $5,591,406 in 2021 [PDF] to $6,903,089 in 2022 [PDF]. It's quite the jump …

[Anonymous Coward]

"Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Taken from the Mozilla website:

"Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Advertising it as a non-profit and asking for donations makes it sound like they are putting most of the money into running and developing the product. But the CEO gets a payrise to $6.9m. Just think what they could achieve if they used some of that money to invest in Mozilla products or even just advertising them. I have no objection at all to paying a CEO well if they are performing at a high level. But with market share declining year after year this does not seem the right time to give a big payrise to the CEO. I regularly donate to FOSS projects and love Firefox but I would have to think carefully before donating to a non-profit that pays one member of staff $6.9m.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

But they've got 15 engineers on AI - what more do you want?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

CEO should start on $300,000 and receive increases (or decreases) in line with overall market share.

I'm just glad I never donated.

[wolfetone]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Fully agree.

I know it's a non-profit and so it can't be seen to be making a profit. The easiest way for it to do that is spend. But spend the majority of that CEO's wage on engineers and designers to produce something that is world beating.

I worry for Mozilla really. Will there be a Mozilla in 5, 10 years? Will we have a Firefox? I don't think we will if it keeps going the way it is, and spending wages like it is in the wrong places.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

"it can't be seen to be making a profit"

The term used is "surplus". That's not a profit, just as senior management's salaries aren't profit.

[hedgie]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

A valid concern, and one I share. I have been using FF far more often these days, especially because I honestly don't know enough about software to really know how de-googled anything Chromium-based is. And the other browser I use on a regular basis is Mac-exclusive so won't work on this laptop. Maybe their future will look a bit brighter once ad-blockers start breaking on Chrome, but making it more privacy-focused in general or at least advertising advantages it already has in that arena would make it more attractive.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Why exactly does Mozilla need a ceo ?

Why does any company need a ceo ?

Most ceos are fucking morons who dont know shit about the business they parasite. case in point, Balmer.

[theOtherJT]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

CEO's do a lot of important things that need doing, and while I'm sure there are management models that can function without a single voice at the top, this way is certainly a valid one. The bit where everyone went wrong was to start treating them like they're irreplaceable geniuses without whom the entire business would collapse. They're basically just the top of the tree of support staff. They can be - and regularly are! - replaced without a business even slowing down. These people need to be treated more like civil servants than celebrities, and paid accordingly.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

toJ: CEO's do a lot of important things that need doing,

cow: list 3 examples where they actually make informative decisions based on real knowledge of the business or product etc.

toj: while I'm sure there are management models that can function without a single voice at the top, this way is certainly a valid one. T

cow: Are you sure ?

How many of these managements including the "leader" actually make positive informed decisions ?

How exactly does someone lke Steve Balmer actually know what the fuck to do when he cant even write a batch file let alone understand the big picture ?

toj: The bit where everyone went wrong was to start treating them like they're irreplaceable geniuses without whom the entire business would collapse.

cow: No the bit that went wrong is pretending they are valuable to the company. Your answer didnt actually say what they do ?

toj: These people need to be treated more like civil servants than celebrities, and paid accordingly.

cow: tahts precisely my point, celebrities by definition dont have actual brains, they are just dumb talking heads or show their tits or whatever. I mean are having big tits really a qualification for running Mozilla ?

[tin 2]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Have to agree.. I'll support in non-financial ways, as I believe we need to retain some diversity in the space, but won't be putting a single £ into the pot when there's also one single person taking 5500000 of them out.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

So paying the CEO 30x more than the engineers who actually make the product vs the guy who does nothing but talk bullshit is equality ?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

You have to look very carefully at non-profits. Salaries (let's not get into euphemisms such as "compensation") to those running it don't count as profits no matter how profitable it may be to those receiving them.

[tin 2]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Indeed.. it needs some research into the yacht(s) and mansion(s) factor. For corporates that seem to be charging a "reasonable" price too, and ofc public bodies (heated swimming pool in your Yorkshire manor, anyone?)

[lieryan]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

Reading just a single revenue number from a long report can be quite misleading, especially considering that a large chunk of Mozilla's revenues comes from a single source: royalties for search engine revenue from Google.

Apparently according to the report "Receivables from that one customer represented 64% and 69% of the December 31, 2022 and 2021 outstanding receivables, respectively'. The customer wasn't mentioned by name in the report, but I think it's pretty obvious that this refers to Google.

We don't know what happens behind the scenes that caused Google to be paying Mozilla less and less every year. Maybe there's a lot of users that switched from Google to some other privacy search engines or other browser, or maybe Mozilla/Google changed how the royalty rates are calculated. The terms of contract for the search engine deal isn't public AFAIK. But looking at past reports, (search engine) royalty revenues seems to have been stagnant, some years increasing some decreasing but this year's decrease isn't too out of ordinary. What is clear is the portion of Google's revenue is steadily clearly decreasing year over year, so presumably they're diversifying here too.

And it's been Mozilla's long term goal to reduce their dependence on Google revenue, and apparently this year their "Subscription and advertising revenue" (i.e. revenue from Mozilla VPN, Pocket, and sponsored content in the New Tab page) increased from $56m to $75m, which is about 33% more. I think that's a fairly healthy growth.

[v13]

Re: "Backed by the non-profit that puts people first"

> sponsored content in the New Tab page

This is pronounced "ads".

[Arthur the cat]

Umm?

"Mozilla had to hit pause on its AI chatbot after the service served up a worrying amount of nonsense in response to user queries."

How is this different from any other AI chatbot?

[Tom Chiverton 1]

"Better integrate advertising"? Like hovering an ad for some other service over every single text input field, all the time, forever?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1870661

[Doctor Syntax]

"Mitchell Baker's compensation"

What terrible misfortune has happened to him that requires he be compensated in this way?

[fnusnu]

Happened to 'her' ;)

[Doctor Syntax]

Whatever.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What terrible misfortune has happened to <her> that requires <her> be compensated in this way?

Being a lawyer.

But let's face it, what Mozilla really needs is to be led by a massively overpaid lawyer, because it's not a technology organisation, apparently.

[HuBo]

Well, moz://a describes itself as " not a normal tech company " as it prioritizes people and their privacy, and strives for a healthier and happier internet. Maybe a highly paid trick cyclist could be a good next CEO for them (super appropriate in the LLM era!)?

[CowHorseFrog]

WHy do they need a ceo ?

Mozilla is supposed to be about the products... unless the ceo is 30x more productive than their engineers.... why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning rod?

[StrangerHereMyself]

Retire

Baker: "I want enough money in the bank so I can retire when Mozilla goes under!"

Is there even a board of directors and who's on it? Baker's friends and relatives? I mean, the execs of Mozilla should've been fired long ago, but for some nefarious reason aren't.

And if they're so concerned about privacy why didn't they implement a true Incognito Mode using the Tor network? Did someone pull their shirt and tell them not to?

[Vincent van Gopher]

Re: Retire

Mitchell has been at Mozilla for a long, long time. She knows a lot about the Mozilla company and Firefox, Knowledge is power, and power gets rewarded.

I think a lot of CEOs, etc. are overpaid but that's how things go, there are plenty of people out there not worth the salary they get but I would say Mitchell isn't one of them.

[Benny Cemoli]

Re: Retire

And in all her tenure as CEO of Mozilla (the non-profit) and Mozilla Corp. (the for-profit arm) Firefox usage has fallen from the Glory Days of 25% or more to a mere 4%. Not something in my opinion that should be rewarded with a $6 million USD per year salary. Mitchel needs to be put out to pasture and and a more productive and successful person installed as CEO. Someone that would work to make sure Firefox doesn't disappear completely.

[Roopee]

Re: Retire

I don't think anyone is worth millions a year, whatever their job!

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Retire

No you know why the America media is constantly praising leaders.

Go watcha. movie or sitcom, corporate leaders are amongst the few that are addressed as if they are gods.

[Dan 55]

Re: Retire

Mitchell has been at Mozilla for a long, long time.

7 million for managed decline? I'll do it for half that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Retire

The untimely departure of Eich was the beginning of the end.

Mozilla decided that politics is more important than making a decent product.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Retire

How exactly does Mitchell contribute to the code ?

[Alumoi]

Re: Retire

She may be the one forcing the developers to introduce all the junk we've been getting in the last years.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Retire

What values does she know abou tthe company ?

If Mozilla used 100% of their funds and hired another 99 Mitchells, they would have nothing. When will people realise that compensation for leadership is the worst form of tax, these parasites take and give nothing back. At least tax to the government does contribute to roads and schools, corporate leadership gives nothing back but bullshit.

[Mike 137]

Firefox continues to trail Google and even Microsoft in desktop browser market share

Isn't it a pity that practically nobody yet seems aware of the snooping carried out by the leaders. Firefox is the least snoopy of the mainstream browsers, but that message still has to register against the 'convenience' of having a snoopy browser already installed. My impression is that however often and loudly we draw attention to this, nobody seems to be listening -- maybe they just don't care. Well, like governments, maybe you get the browser you deserve.

[ecofeco]

Re: Firefox continues to trail Google and even Microsoft in desktop browser market share

Cue Monty Python's "She's a witch!" for explanation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy AI replacement!

How about replacing the CEO with AI and redirect the compensation to develop AI (and other technologies)?

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Easy AI replacement!

How about no ceo ?

What is wrong with Americans that they are brainwashed into believing that ceos are necessary.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Easy AI replacement!

Amazing made quite a few comments and nobody can actually write a response WHY any company needs a CEO.

[Anonymous Coward]

$510M in "royalities" for a 3% marker share?...Really?

Even by Dot Com 2.0 scam standards thats quite a scam.

Plus I dont know how they can spend $220M on "software development" for software that is that buggy, that unstable, or such a resource pig. Its not like they are Microsoft. Who anyway have always spent far less money per buggy LOC. Far far less. Last time I did an annual budget for a software dev team for a product of that size and complexity it was the equivalent of less than 3% of that truly ludicrous number for Mozilla. And we actually shipped a stable non-buggy product in a reasonable timescale. To paying customers.

Take it out behind the woodshed and just shoot the mother. Its little more than a sick joke by this stage.

[aerogems]

Here I Thought

The Mozilla way was copying everything Google did with Chrome pissing off long-time users, removing all the distinguishing features that gave it a competitive advantage and pissing off long-time users again, and wasting money buying companies like Pocket where they clearly have no idea how they plan to actually make use of it once they own it.

Privacy is a good start, but they can't just coast on that forever. Firefox needs to be innovative again, and that doesn't come from simply copying whatever Google's doing with Chrome, and ramming through changes despite the protestations of your users. Personally, I would start by bringing back something like the old XUL extensions. Maybe security and technical concerns prevent 100% of the functionality, but surely there's a way they could go beyond the Manifest v2 level they have now. Allowing them to be seen as more than just another Chrome clone. Something else I might consider, is reaching out to the Vivaldi devs and seeing if a deal could be brokered to have a Vivaldi version based on Firefox's engine. Hell, I'd even reach out to Microsoft to see if they'd consider making an Edge front-end to Firefox's Quantum.

[captain veg]

Re: copying everything Google did with Chrome

They had no choice after Opera ASA gave up.

-A.

[ecofeco]

Re: Here I Thought

Copying Google?

Sir, I think you've had one too many.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here I Thought

Ah, but Mozilla also owns MZLA, the unit that produces Thunderbird. That just got a huge rewrite. Now it is super buggy and unreliable, unlike the version they auto-updated users from. The idea apparently was to rewrite T'bird's core as a webmail system, with the UI being built out of Firefox code. But Firefox is by now, like HTML in general, too complex for anyone to understand. So the pieces fit together the way English cars were. And they can't fix things without breaking other things. That's not just copying Chrome, it's innovative destruction of a once good product. Baker apparently needs extra compensation to make up for the emotional difficulty of being behind that. You know, like how CEOs of failing companies get raises to compensate for the pain of having to lay off the proles.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Here I Thought

Wrong. FF and Thunderbird were built on top of XUL, which is a lower level component based system.

[Spazturtle]

Re: Here I Thought

"The idea apparently was to rewrite T'bird's core as a webmail system, with the UI being built out of Firefox code. "

Thunderbird and Firefox have always had a UI made from HTML (XUL was just a proprietary modification to HMTL4) that is self rendered. They have just switched from the HTML4 based XUL to standard HTML5.

[Rob 15]

Moz Ad network

If Mozilla wanted to do something useful, couldn't they create a new ad network, non personalised ads only, with no cookies, data harvesting or consent popups? With Adsense about to force consent popups on EU visitors with no options for publishers to opt out (other than getting struck off) - it seems like there's a gap in the market, and it would be an extra revenue stream for Mozilla.

[DS999]

There is no possible scenario

Where the CEO of a "non profit" is worth nearly $7 million dollars. Especially not when that is over 1% of TOTAL revenue! If for-profit Walmart ran that way its CEO would be collecting about $6 billion!

[captain veg]

Re: the CEO of a "non profit" is worth nearly $7 million dollars

Not "worth". Was paid.

I'm worth, more or less, the value of my home(s). It's much more than my salary.

-A.

[CRConrad]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

The worth of a person or their work is not the same as how much money they have. Phrases like “He's worth $300 million” are just examples of a somewhat recent (probably American) idiom, not what the word “worth” originally – and still! – means. “I won't pay fifty bucks for a loaf of bread, it's only worth two”, “that peace treaty isn't worth the piece of paper it's printed on”, and “Mitchell Baker's yearly work contribution to Mozilla isn't worth anything near seven million dollars” are all examples of perfectly correct usage of the word “worth”. HTH!

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: There is no possible scenario

How exactly is the CEO who produces no code worth more than the coders who actually write code ?

[chuckufarley]

Hopefully...

...The AI bits can be turned off when running ./configure because otherwise this is going to be a huge problem.

[ldo]

What Is This “Market Share” Business?

What is a “market”? It’s a place where people trade goods and services, and money.

Downloading a piece of software and using it for free does not a “market” make.

[Catkin]

Re: What Is This “Market Share” Business?

A market share can be used to describe anything where consumers have choice. Whether all, some or none of the options are paid is irrelevant.

[ldo]

Re: What Is This “Market Share” Business?

So how much is this “market” worth, then?

[chuckufarley]

Re: What Is This “Market Share” Business?

Read "Homesteading the Noosphere."

[CatWithChainsaw]

How Hard is it

To make your business model "not suck in every way imaginable", stick to it, and then wait for Manifest V3 to make Chromium-based browsers bleed users when uBO stops working?

"It's doing nothing, Michael, how much could it possibly cost, $10?"

[CowHorseFrog]

I think the real question is why is Mozilla paying millions for leadership who does what exactly ?

Hard to feel sorry when they piss millions like this on him and his like minded friends.

[CRConrad]

Not on him.

...they piss millions like this on him and his like minded friends.

On her and her like-minded friends.

[demon driver]

At stake: the perhaps last opportunity for Firefox to regain relevance

"The recent statement from Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker suggests that the organization sees AI as a more interesting place to focus its efforts on than saving the world (again) from a browser monopoly. If Firefox languishes while Mozilla pursues shinier projects, an opportunity — perhaps the final one — for Firefox to regain relevance may be lost." (J. Corbet on LWN)

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is just talking about the CEO salary, but don't forget that another big chunk of their available funds go to opaque far-left organizations. https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla

[wolfkin]

So called "opaque far-left organizations"

I skimmed that article they seem to have a problem with (first in the list) [Mckensie Mack Group]

Never heard of them so i followed the links they provided

1. A twitter search that's supposed to suggest they hate white colonialism

2. A twitter search that's supposed to suggest they hate cis people

3. A company blogpost on abortion.

They claim the blog "primarily discusses abortion and Trans related issues". Of the eight blogposts there was one on abortion and one on trans stuff. I skimmed the abortion one because my stand on abortion is pretty cemented and I read the trans one because I still don't know where I am on that. Honestly considering the source is a black trans women who has a business promoting black trans ideology. That post was pretty darn inoffensive.

The twitter searches are nonsense. There's no links to specific tweets so it's just a lot of noise. I read about 50-60 tweets and couldn't get any thing cohesive out of it. Because there are tweets from the person in question but also tweets from people yelling at the person in question as well as tweets that are unrelated but have the other keyword because twitter search kinda sucks.

By no means am I suggesting Mozilla is a paragon of corporate spendthrift or even that I support or care about MMG. But that blog wants to make the point that MMG is some sort of weirdo group that hates us white guys and everything normal. It's in how they frame it. But honestly it's seems like any other racial justice organization I've ever seen.

[Draco]

Is it any surprise?

A Robber-Baroness plundering all she can, while the hoi polloi suffer and struggle?

From Wikipedia (to be fair, her quote is unreferenced, so it, probably, needs a citation tag): In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008.[15] On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. ... That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to."

[Daniel Pfeiffer]

Project Servo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(layout_engine)> (much safer browser core written in Rust) probably could have been finished for far less than Mitchell's (old or new) salary.

Can't let safety get in the way of her profits. So Mozilla laid off all Servo developers in August 2020.

[Matthew "The Worst Writer on the Internet" Saroff]

Mitchell Baker is not the highest paid executive in tech

But he is the most OVERPAID executive in tech. (Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ is not a tech executive, he's an actor starring in his own demented reality show)