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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

>Mitchell Baker is frankly a moron

Mitchell Baker is a bloody genius, this is a woman who heads both the foundation and the corporation to make literally several millions while ostensibly claiming to champion the right to freedom of information and communications.

What she is doing is unethical and suspect as hell, but so long as she can keep getting away with it she is absolutely not a moron.

As the old saying goes: If it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid.

Note that "works" here does not mean furthering Mozilla's mission, it means securing a fat paycheck off her fiefdom.

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Not being able to create a success and instead making personal wealth by siphoning money through someone else's creation while it rots is not a quality I would label as genius.

Perhaps the people that keep paying her are the morons then?

Aren't the people that keep paying her Google?

Yep:

“Most of the revenue of Mozilla Corporation comes from Google (81% in 2022)” [0]

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation

Look, if I can make seven million god damn greenbacks while claiming to be the leader of the free peoples but actually doing nothing or maybe even something to subvert them, I will call myself a genius.

Sorry man, but I loathe people who think that way. Particularly since I've ( and many others) found a way to make a living without resorting to that sort of schemes.

To be clear: I don't support nor even agree with what she is doing. She is a key part of the disease Mozilla is suffering from.

But with that said, I am also willing to at least respect the fact someone is making an absolute killing of a living for next to nothing. Think about it: $7,000,000.00 for doing next to nothing at bare minimum. Most people would kill for that kind of income to work ratio.

Mitchell Baker is a woman who figured out how to game the system she's in and win big (bigly?), I can and will respect that even if I otherwise vehemently detest her. The first step to addressing a problem is figuring out the problem.

Hmm, me in particular I'd be extremely pissed (and am) to even know that such a person exists.

I'm not the absolute moral authority but I believe a great deal of what's keeping us back from being absolutely great as "humanity" has to do with those parasites and their negative influence.

> a great deal of what's keeping us back from being absolutely great as "humanity" has to do with those parasites and their negative influence.

that's called the human condition. You would've done the exact same, when put in the same situation in all likelihood.

People are inherently greedy, and selfish. There's no changing it, as this is an evolutionary advantage. Those altruists would've died out, since they would've given way to those who are greedier (otherwise, how are they altruists?).

No, I wouldn't. And I've had the chance several times. Not 7M but still a buttload of cash.

that is Machiavellian or Ten Rules of Power or whatever; it is not clear that the position is being gamed, but that the results with the current players are certainly out of constructive balance

It's all about perspective. If your purpose is to make yourself millions without producing anything beneficial to the world...it's genius.

> If your purpose is to make yourself millions without producing anything beneficial to the world...it's genius.

they produce benefit to those that paid - namely in this case, google.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

Someone who was a genius wouldn't strangle their cash cow just to have a steak dinner. She's ruthless, conniving, and short sighted. Perhaps she knows she's incapable of improving the business, in which case stealing more money from it before it goes under makes sense.

It’s not her cash cow, she’s just sucking on it. She’s not risking on getting the cow bigger and healthier and profit later as that window of opportunity may close.

It’s horrible destructive behavior if you ask me but why is she allowed to do it in the first place?

In other words, sly as a fox.

That doesn't make a person a genius. It makes them a sociopath. What they are doing is not intellectually difficult and actually requires low emotional intelligence usually.

I can't speak toward her specifically in all honesty. I would need to research it further. But a policy of reward/praising all the con-men (using that phrase loosely) in America is a bad policy.

I mean, it's still stupid. It just works.

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