A new CEO for Mozilla

Including the subsidiaries, Mozilla in 2022 had revenue of roughly $510M in royalties (from default/optional search engines), plus $75M in subscriptions (Pocket Premium and VPN) and advertising (sponsored content on the new tab page, etc). Their expenses were $220M for software development, plus another $200M for administration and marketing etc. They made a net gain of $145M, with cash reserves of $510M.

They say "81% ... of Mozilla's revenues from customers with contracts were derived from one customer", which presumably means Google.

(Source: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-... via https://stateof.mozilla.org/)

So I think the problem is, Mozilla is almost entirely dependent on Google - that's at least $400M of revenue if I'm interpreting it correctly. If they lost that $400M (and couldn't find another search engine to replace it), they'd run out of cash in about two years.

Also, total royalties were $300M back in 2012 (when Firefox had ~20% browser market share, according to Statcounter), $500M in 2016 (~8% market share), and have stayed around $500M until now (~3% market share) (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/who-we-are/public-records/). Google's funding has increased or remained stable despite Firefox's substantial drop in market share, which suggests Google might be being somewhat charitable and supporting Mozilla with more funding than their search engine placement is really worth. If Google decides to stop being that charitable, because they no longer see a strategic benefit in Firefox's continued existence, Mozilla will be in deep trouble.

That seems a good reason to attempt to diversify their sources of revenue, to provide more confidence that Firefox can survive longer than just the next couple of years.

Far less than a thousand, and yes, you need a lot of developers. Google definitely has more than a thousand.

Keep in mind, that a browser also needs a JavaScript engine (with JIT), needs to support multiple OSes, and it needs to stay on top of security issues.

They really, really can't. Forget adding new features, three programmers could barely keep the lights on, or respond to bug reports, or fix issues as they arise.

As for the rest of your argument, this is the same refrain commonly heard in retrocomputing everywhere: "We don't need all those new features from systemd/wayland/Linux/etc, if you stopped adding those new features software wouldn't depend on them and we could keep using sysvinit/x11/OpenBSD/etc forever!" The world moves on, and users and web developers *want* new features for the web platform. The net effect of digging in your heels and choosing to not add support for new web standards is a dead browser in which websites slowly stop working and people switch away to a working browser.

And it's also not the case that web browsers *as a group* could stop adding new features if they all agreed to do so, either. The net effect of *that* would be that native applications have features browsers can't match, more sites throw features into their native app and not into their web version, and all the people saying "stop telling me to download your app, I just want to use your website!" lose out. The better the web gets, the less weight the mobile app ecosystem has, and the more it's possible for users to remain in control of their experience.

Now, it's *absolutely* valid that not all things should be in web standards. But Mozilla *does* have a voice in web standards too, as does Apple, as do others. Things do not get *unilaterally* added because one vendor wants them. And frankly, in order for Mozilla to have a larger voice in web standards, they need to have more market share. If they have 50% of the market and say they're not going to implement something, it doesn't become a standard; if they have 3% of the market they don't have that power.

>The problem with paying someone $7m is if someone else will do the same job, just as well, for $6m. Or $200k

Why would they pay you $7m when someone else will do it for about what they're paying you now? But maybe you can negotiate for more than what you're paid now, sure. Just probably not $7m. Remember you also have a permanent full-time position that you can expect to keep approximately forever, and if the company shuts up shop you can go find another job immediately. A CEO has high expectations, very high levels of stress (responsible for many people's jobs), they're hard to replace, etc.

It's just a free market! It's as simple as that.

"
What we fund

Mozilla finds, supports, and connects movement partners building a more open, inclusive internet and more trustworthy AI. Through fellowships and awards, we bolster people and bold ideas that can shape a more human-centered internet.

These leaders build new technology, develop toolkits and curricula, run campaigns, prototype solutions, and influence policy around the globe to:

- Reimagine new norms, policies, infrastructure, and technologies that protect and empower individuals and communities online.
- Reconstitute more — and more diverse — groups in the development, deployment, and management of the technologies that make up the web.
- Rebalance power online, shifting it back to individuals and communities.

[...]

Who we’ve funded

Mozilla Fellows and Awardees represent a range of disciplines and geographies: They are policymakers in Kenya, journalists in Brazil, engineers in Germany, privacy activists in the United States, and data scientists in the Netherlands. We seek fellows and awardees who are mission-driven, are masters of their trade, and have bold, new ideas that can catalyze lasting change.
"

That kind of stuff. Could be interesting, could maybe even be something I could consider donating to if it all didn't sound so vague, but definitely completely different from Firefox development.

(Note that not a single cent of the Foundation's money is used for Firefox development. The Corporation, which actually pays for Firefox development, is funded by payments from Google for Firefox using Google as the default search engine, and things like that. Part of that money is used for Firefox development, part is donated to the Foundation. And if you want to donate to help support Firefox development, via https://donate.mozilla.org, your money goes to the Foundation, not the corporation, so you're *not* supporting Firefox development.)

Anyway it's not very relevant as apparently (see excors' sibling post to yours) the large majority of the money is in the subsidiaries rather than the Foundation.

Ok, good.

> (Form 990 says the Foundation by itself has about $85M of cash and investments. The financial statement says the Foundation plus subsidiaries (Mozilla Corporation, MZLA Technologies (for Thunderbird), Mozilla Ventures, etc) has about $1145M of cash and investments, so almost all of that must be in the subsidiaries.)

I would like to see it split up though.

As is any other CEO of any other company.

The numbers are:
$7m/a and barely 4% market share, constantly falling share during the last decade.
These numbers speak for themselves.

>or could actually be in _worse_ shape.

There's not much share left to loose.
It can't get much worse.

That's worth $7m/a? I don't think so.

I hope that the new CEO takes the right path now.
I'm not against $7m/a per se. But only if the product is excellent. FF went far away from that.

You could have had several absolutely industry-leading, trend-setting, engineers if she'd been on $5m less pay. Or 1 absolutely world-leading eng, plus 20 to 40 top-class engineers. And she'd still have been paid /generously/. Surely the organisation would have been more likely to reverse the decline in that case?