That is the problem that got them into this situation in the first place.
No consistent leadership vision or direction - do everything and anything their staff wanted, almost none of which was actual tech. They hired activists - not technologists.
Look at the results.
You can google Firefox market share, Thunderbird market share, Mozilla's financial standing over the past two decades, all of their failed social justice endeavors, etc.
The company rotted from the inside by allowing the inmates to run the asylum. Now Mozilla is severing the limb responsible for endless side-quests - but probably way too late.
FTA: "Fighting for a free and open internet will always be core to our mission, and advocacy continues to be a critical tool in that work. We’re revisiting how we pursue that work, not stopping it"
How about you just make the best damn web browser imaginable?
One of the most important and influential technology companies ever ate itself into a failed advocacy group with a couple mediocre tech hobbies. What a joke...
Your diagnosis is off. So many of the good workers got poached by Facebook and all the other companies that HNers dream of working for. Not all of them ever even worked for Mozilla Foundation or its subsidiaries—some simply got reassigned by the company that was actually paying them. Pre-Chrome, for example, the Firefox lead was a Google employee.
And not that it's the product of any of the people who were let go, but developer.mozilla.org is a pretty valuable and high-impact resource. It's more "advocacy for a free and open Internet" than it is "making a browser".
Do you really believe there are no Facebook/Meta employees that use HN, the site based in Silicon Valley?
>No consistent leadership vision or direction
On the other hand, random side-projects are necessary for finding new ground before it craters you - like how Microsoft was absolutely cratered by the "smartphone" thing and their too-little-too-late Windows Phone.