Mozilla was never able to leverage its success in the desktop browser market into a successive platform story that evolved into mobile and beyond. They realized this too late, and then their extreme over-correction was to build a new mobile operating system. However an open-source OS already existed in the market with AOSP so FirefoxOS needed to try to thread a convoluted set of needles to justify its existence. It actually was a confusing set of Android Browser web-apps mixed with an OS for new devices -- a contradictory strategy that they could never resolve.

The worst part of the current tech-environment is that companies are dead years before they even know it. The next platform is already tearing apart your current one, while its in its infancy. And the entrenched players in the next space will be incredibly hard to unseat.

By the time you recognize the threat, attempt to turn the ship to respond, you are already deep down aware that there is very little chance of a happy ending. This results in convoluted late-stage product strategies that have 3+ directions since management knows no single one of them are viable.

This is a deeply uncomfortable truth that keeps me up at night.