These are exceptional times. The original Mozilla posts mentioned the effects COVID19 had on their business.

CEOs of much larger companies, with much larger salaries, have cut or take no salary. Here's a short list of some

Lyft, Fiat Chrysler, GE, Delta, Alaska Airlines, United, Southwest, Jetblue, AirBnB, GE, NBA

How is it not incredibly tone deaf to cut 25% of the company and not at least in a token gesture temporarily eliminate your salary when you're literally a multimillionaire.

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Also,

>And you do want highly qualified people there.

That would be one thing if Mozilla was in a period of great growth. But it's not; it's in steady decline. Yet c-suite salary has grown in inverse proportion. Highly qualified? Are they?

Those no salarie/$1 salarie CEOs sound oh so noble but they are usually compensated very well with stock options and so it's mostly just a facade of giving a

As long as the stocks have value and are not depreciating.

Given that capital gains are taxed at lower rates then income, its actually a tax-avoidance schema above everything else.

no it's not, unless you can point me at the CEOs receiving more options in lieu of their pay, otherwise it really is a pay cut, even if they're still getting rich, they're getting rich at a decreased rate and that is money they'll never see by taking $1 salary for the year.

It probably takes more skills to get the company from decline into growth. So as a company in decline you want great leadership.

So maybe until you prove your worth as great leader that gets company from decline into growth, your salary shouldn't keep growing by the millions?

Then they wouldn't take the job though. Why take the risk of getting less pay to do a more difficult job? It's not like companies are always fixable.

> Imagine that c-suite types may just work for the salary, too

That's fine, and if people decided that, I would respect that decision. In which case they could resign, and Mozilla get people willing to work for $500,000.

> hey engineers, how about cutting your salary to $60k?

The problem is you might severely limit your talent pool, to a much greater extent than a cap of $500k would do.

> If you think $60k is too little, ask your colleagues from EU, from India, to say nothing of Africa.

Maybe Mozilla should hire more people in those places, if they need to do so to save money.

> In which case they could resign, and Mozilla get people willing to work for $500,000.

Exactly. Firing so many people means it's time to reconsider the structure and ambition of the company,and that includes considering whether to compensate the ceo at the level of charity ceos or at the level of successful tech ceos.

> Maybe Mozilla should hire more people in those places, if they need to do so to save money.

They did hire from places with cheaper labor cost, such as Taiwan. They still got axed.

> Let's say: hey engineers, how about cutting your salary to $60k?

You can't make this comparison, as $60k are not even enough to survive in many areas of the US, while $500k would still be enough to live in luxury no matter where you live.

"And you do want highly qualified people there."

Why, do you know any?

500K !== 60K

500k / 2.5M < 60k / 100k

The marginal utility of a dollar decreases as the absolute number of dollars increases. The only way 2.5 million can provide significantly more utility than 500k (i.e not going towards a mansion in Atherton) is if the person making that much is giving it forward to a large network of friends, family and charities.

This is completely out of touch with the reality of life. 500k is enough to live in luxury anywhere, 60k won't be enough to survive in most tech areas.

I was only suggesting that GP's argument cannot be dismissed (i.e. still holds) by merely emphasizing that 500k is not 60k, with no further judgment or opinion.