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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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The Mozilla Corporation is not a non-profit. This confusion is why articles talking about what “Mozilla” is doing are also doing a disservice unless they are specific. The Foundation is not doing layoffs, and the interim CEO at the Corporation came from Airbnb after eBay, PayPal, and Skype. She isn’t working for $400k.
The previous CEO made $6,903,089 in 2022, they are employee number 8 on the 990.
The Mozilla Corporation itself isn't, but it's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, so some of the same legal restrictions apply.
I don't think, we would know these wages otherwise...
I don’t think most of the legal restrictions apply at all, actually, as long as the entities are kept sufficiently separated. That’s one of the reasons non-profits use a for-profit subsidiary that pays taxes for its income. I’m not sure if they have to report the CEO salary on the 990, except the previous CEO was also a staff member of the Foundation (no other corporate executives are listed, despite likely being competitively compensated).
I have no problem with how it is set up, but to say the executive was making $400k is incorrect, as he has nothing to do with Firefox. The entity that is doing layoffs pays its executives millions.
I do wish they made the distinction more obvious though. I see a lot of criticism for advocacy things the Foundation does “distracting from Firefox” when it is not the case.
Well, that's one point I meant, that the CEO is a Foundation employee, so the non-profit rules apply there. But the big one is that because the Corporation is wholly-owned by a non-profit, its only stakeholder where profits could get paid out to, is the non-profit which practically can't take it. ("Profit" excludes wages.)
So, the legally for-profit subsidiary actually doesn't have a profit motive to the same extent as traditional companies.
They do still want to make money, because contrary to the non-profit, they can save it up for bad times, and paying your workers at least industry-standard wages is also nice.
Which is also where the CEO salary comes from. Similar companies pay probably just as much or more. I fully agree that it's stupidly too much money, but we also cannot expect anyone to perform as a CEO out of the goodness of their hearts, and to not take an equivalent job at a company which does pay them stupidly too much money.
As for people not understanding the distinction between Foundation and Corporation, I agree that it's a bit of a problem, but I wouldn't want them to rebrand one or the other. My mum is already confused between "Mozilla" and "Firefox". I guess, they could call it "Firefox Company", but I do think both benefit from the shared branding.
Disagree. A job that pays 6 million attracts a person who wants 6 million and more. A job that pays less attracts a different kind of person. Look at how successful Wikipedia is, then look up their executive salaries.
EDIT: And, if it is the corp laying off, then that is money that could be keeping employees on board.