February 2006
Wednesday 1 February 2006
- Resignation - Tuesday, February 7, 2006 will be my last day as an employee of the Mozilla Corporation. I joined the Mozilla Foundation pre-Firefox 1.0 (but not too pre-) and, closer to the end, I was given to the Corporation. Unfortunately, the Corporation and I drifted apart, and one or both of us wasn't strong enough to find each other again before it was too late. The Foundation was a unique personal and communal experience. I miss those high days of deciphering and discovering the Project, from top to bottom, from outside in. The Foundation gave me reign to dig into Mozilla and discover its onion-like layers. Any time I was stuck in a layer, I could peel it back and learn a new one. Those days faded. In the Corporation I had lots of day-to-day responsibility and little knowledge of where the place as a whole was headed. Somehow, while changing in other obvious ways (new hires, new structure, new offices), the Corporation became much more opaque than the Foundation had ever been. Difficulty From inside, the Mozilla Corporation is opaque and difficult to understand. This is hard to admit because workplaces don't become opaque without failures at multiple points. There needs to be at once activity and structural changes in the organization, and people need to either be so busy with their own work or, if they notice that it has become difficult to understand what's going on, not ask why. I fit into at least the former category and possibly the latter. I was conscious of the opacity's extremity as a problem only later. Had I noticed it earlier, I could have asked questions. But I didn't. It was either: Finish the release that was months behind schedule and driven internally as required for the organization to stay relevant. or: Make it my mission to figure out where we were headed or at least what it was we wanted to do. False dichotomy? I don't think so, but I'll entertain the possibility. Regardless, either of these paths is a full-time job on their own. Possessing engineering tendencies, the first path was the obvious choice. In hindsight I should have chosen the second path, wading deep into the management layer to again decipher which direction we were pointed in. Again? Each time I had burned myself out working for Mozilla, I would disconnect for a week or two, recharge, and come back to understand where we were headed so I could help with the next big thing. I understood by watching people interact, by attending meetings, and by paying attention to the organization as a whole. The entire cycle usually lasted around 2 to 3 months. Here's what it looked like: Activity Frame of Mind Time spent Find hard+relevant problem no one has the time to tackle on their own Recuperation/Tinkering 2 weeks Generate solutions, figure out all who's needed to solve problem Recuperation/Furious Hacking 3 weeks Recruit people to join in fixing, fix problem 1-4 weeks Verify fixes Furious... (17:21 | 15 Comments)