The Fix The Internet incubator doesn't look like very much money is involved. A $2500 stipend for participants, a top prize of $25,000, not that much money. Whereas layoffs of 250 people will save maybe $50 - $100 million a year.

Of course, perhaps they will also cut future funding to this incubator, and it's just a different timing that they announce it.

I don't know the details, but the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation have different budgets and legally have to spend the money on different things (since the Foundation is a non-profit). They can't just move money around like a normal company can.

As someone who's been involved in setting up a corporate incubator, this is a pretty common dilemma.

The way that we viewed it at my previous company was basically it's two different businesses, two different P&L's and two different sets of metrics and KPIs. You could see them as two different business units that can succeed or fail independently.

If one Business Unit is struggling, you can't just fill the holes by taking funds from another BU to fill the gap. You need to solve the inherent profitability problems in the struggling Business Unit in some other way, typically by selling more, increasing the price/mix or reducing the cost.

Don't know if this is how Mozilla reasons, but this was definitely the way we reasoned in the last two large corporations I worked for.

Or spends 2.5m just for its CEO yearly (not to mention the other executives). I guess it is easier to fire the servo/rust people who did actual work rather than any of the designers or the higher ups.

Different people. Fire one side to fund the other. Many companies use COVID as an excuse to get rid of management mistakes too.

Doing layoffs doesn't necessarily mean you don't have the cash to pay everyone, or even that you're not cashflow positive. Sometimes orgs do big layoffs amidst big hiring pushes, meaning they don't feel like their resources are allocated correctly. Sometimes layoffs are a part of bigger organizational restructuring (this is Mozilla), saying they want to emphasize certain parts of the business and downsize others. If layoffs weren't evenly distributed around the company (ie every org loses 5% vs. we just laid off all of x department), it can mean different things.

If revenue from Firefox isn't enough to pay the bills anymore, then not funding R&D is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Fixing the browser revenue is at best difficult (i.e. significantly increase market share, more hard work to do on the browser which will cost $$$ for labor) while the Fix The Internet initiative could result in a miracle that saves them. Management often opts for for the miracle.

As a company, you know you're doing something wrong when websites such as this pop up on HN. I hope Mozilla is able to turn back to its origins.

I remember reading another comment on HN somewhere that broke down how project costs are different from employee costs. Something to do with employees being recurring expenses vs projects being somewhat fixed....I'm not going to do it justice. If I find the comment I'll link to it.

I encourage you to learn more about business! I have found that process to be interesting for someone on the technical side. More tech people need to consider it and respect it, in my opinion.

Basically, part of situation analysis is that you have to evaluate the future potential of your projects and where your investment dollars go. Businesses are always thinking of the future, and that includes non-profits.

The Boston Consulting Group matrix is one tool that might fit this scenario: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/st...

The scenario you describe might be analogous to this hypothetical example: let’s say Microsoft laid off its entire Microsoft Surface team, and simultaneously invested $10 billion into Microsoft Azure. You might think, what the heck, the Surface lineup are good products that seem to be profitable (I actually have no clue if they are).

But, perhaps the Surface product line is a dog. It’s a low-market share product in a low-growth market. Azure might be a star: it has a large portion of a fast-growing market, and deserves more investment.

Even though Mozilla is a non-profit, I think it’s clear that they are looking to diversify their income stream. The “fix the internet” incubator can probably come up with services in high-growth markets that are less costly to implement and more easily monetized than a web browser (and fit their organizational goal of improving the Internet).