this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Fun fact: non-profits are required to report the incomes of their highest paid employees on IRS form 990. In 2022, Mark Surman was paid $344,483. This is well below executive pay in Silicon Valley, and on par with normal software engineer pay in the same area according to GlassDoor.
Sure, some executives are overpaid, but this is very much not the case here.
It’s worth it to find out before spewing hate and bias.
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 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.
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.
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.