Mitchell Baker
Mitchell Baker
Winifred Mitchell Baker, better known simply as Mitchell Baker, is the Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and of Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates development of the open source Mozilla Internet applications, including the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinesswoman
CountryUnited States of America
cutting views decision
Our sense of "open" is that the authority to make decisions about that gets distributed based on merit and understanding and participation and leadership, not solely on employment or a title or a business plan. Technical colleagues will define "open" as "open standards," "interoperable" - you can find it, search it, cut and paste it, view source, mix and match - all those things that we associate with text on the Web, that you can continue to do that with audio and video and whatever's next.
crazy thinking numbers
What's been most helpful to me is realizing that those times when all the heads in the room turn and look at me as if I was crazy, reinforce my own leadership capability. Because I've been in a number of those settings where I've been right. And I've been right often enough that now when it happens I don't automatically think, "Oh, my, what's wrong with me?" or "Ohhh, I must not be ready for this role," or "They know so much more than I do."
awkward helpful ends
Just to have the confidence to say, "Which end of that spectrum am I usually on?" That's been very helpful to me. Because it's a really awkward setting.
mean thinking blue
Usually, you know, you're at a table and you're the only woman, you've got this idea, you finally speak up - I mean, I've been in some settings where every head turns toward me and then they all turn away as if I've never spoken. Which I think happens when whatever I said was so out of the blue, or so awkward, that they just didn't know how to respond.
revenge mean everyday
I mean, who wants to live waking up... at least I don't want to live waking up everyday about revenge.
average differences doe
Ther average consumer does not know the difference between the browser, the internet, and the search box.
thinking people community
We have a very active testing community which people don't often think about when you have open source.
broken-heart people foundation
We've broken the code base into logical chunks, called modules, and the foundation staff delegate authority for the modules to people with the most expertise.
looks helpful look-up
Some period of time later you look up and say, "That concern was right on the mark; it happened exactly as I thought it would." So that's been really helpful to recognize.
people effort ships
People notice it and they help you participate and see your work included in this project and when we ship our browser, you and millions of other people get to see the fruits of your efforts.
thinking difficult products
But I think it's always difficult when a product that you're using and accustomed to changes.
thinking people sticks
Many people think that open source projects are sort of chaotic and and anarchistic. They think that developers randomly throw code at the code base and see what sticks.
men thinking years
I guess my other advice is that it's really good to be comfortable among groups of men! It's just a very common work setting and I don't actually think about it too much, but there must be some comfort level that I've developed over the years.
people floating suspicious
Money tends to make people suspicious, if there's any money floating around.