Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Economist on Mitchell Baker

Posted by Zonk on from the lizard-wrangler-and-fox-driver dept.

Sara Chan writes "The Economist has a story about a trapeze artist who, in her spare time, is the Chief Lizard Wrangler at a non-profit. You perhaps know her as Mitchell Baker, leader of Firefox." From the article: "Ms Baker gradually found herself the leader of this project. Perhaps this is because she is a somewhat unusual member of the Netscape diaspora. For a start, she is a woman in a community populated, as one (male) colleague puts it, by geeky males with 'spare time and no social life'. Ms Baker herself has never even written code. She studied Chinese at Berkeley, and then became a lawyer--her role at the old Netscape was in software licensing. On all technical matters, she defers to Brendan Eich, her chief geek."

6 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. More about her... by skochak · · Score: 5, Informative
    Trained as a lawyer, Baker coordinates business and policy issues and sits on the both Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors and the Mozilla Corporation Board of Directors. In 2005, Time magazine included her in the 2005 Time 100, the magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker

    --
    This sentence contradicts itself - no actually it doesn't.
  2. Amazingly socially unsophisticated. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is not a troll. And, I agree it is unfortunate. However, I saw Mitchell Baker being interviewed by Charlie Rose. She was amazingly socially unsophisticated. She said she had no technical knowledge, but is a lawyer. She gave the impression that she needs to be replaced by someone more capable.

    She gave such a poor account of herself that Charlie Rose was visibly embarrassed. That's the only time I've seen Charlie Rose embarrassed in the many years I've watched his interviews.

    Don't think you are being loyal to Mozilla by supporting someone who is so obviously not suited to be a leader.

    1. Re:Amazingly socially unsophisticated. by headkase · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think she's proven as a decision maker and project manager although.

      --
      Shh.
    2. Re:Amazingly socially unsophisticated. by ajnsue · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is the best thing I have heard in a long time. A person who is not slick or commercial - becoming an effective leader of a succesful project. Makes you think that competency had something to do with her accomplishments rather that self-marketing.
      This and the sentencing of Ebbers and other CEO's makes me think that maybe the Earth is slowly being returned to its correct ethical axis

  3. well... by know1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    even though she doesn't write any code, they figured having a woman telling the developers what to do would be the best way to get them to obey as they were used to taking orders off their mothers/wives

    i kid, i kid, posting this from firefox, keep up the good work guys

  4. Friday is troll day! by mspohr · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Let's see... The Economist posts a complimentary article on a woman who is heading the Mozilla org saying nice things about what she has done to help revive competition in the browser world.

    So far we have...

    - she's ugly

    - she's socially inept

    - she's a lawyer

    - she has a bad hair cut

    - she's obviously "not a leader"

    - she's not a geek (this was posted as a bad thing)

    - she doesn't care about the code

    - she only cares about marketing

    - Mozilla never fixed my pet bug (several times).

    - the software crashes on me every day

    Back to your basements, little boys, or your mother will spank you.

    --
    I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?