I am not an expert, but 75k seems disproportionate from the effort and time the requirements seem to be looking for. For the lofty goal of "Fix the internet", 75k seems more like "An extra few weeks of runway." What am I missing?
Imagine you have a big vision to build something that betters the internet and you have only your life savings. Or you've been working on something for a while but haven't been able to put full effort into it.
This $75k is to kickstart teams & projects in "fixing the internet".
^ Probably a more succinct way to ask my question. I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to negatively paint the program, it's clearly more than most companies are doing to fix the internet. 75k is just the lowest amount of money I've seen with respect to incubators/funding (but again, I am not an expert).
We have some really good projects from this much smaller program, including https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/neutral/oagdejngkg... (Firefox extension releasing this week), https://ameelio.org/, and more!
So we're not entirely sure whether $75k is the right amount or not, BUT we do know that with $10k, we've had some really impressive projects.
Sorry about the broken site! We're currently fixing it up along with the release of our tool on Firefox!
This should be months, up to a year for 1-2 founder team.
3 people / 75k = 25k per person. At a reasonable 100k/year earning potential, that means that 75k a year is 3 months of time?
You can't walk away from your day job at $BIGCO, start your own company and expect to get paid like you used to, it doesn't work like that (at least at the beginning).
Your pay is having a large % ownership in (what you think will be) a valuable company down the line.
My issue, I guess, is not with salary, but moreso the value add. 75k does not seem like enough to A.) Live on, really, B.) Extend runway, really, C.) "Fix the internet", really. I can understand trading in cash for agency, I would absolutely do it. But this doesn't really seem like that either, given that presumably lots of founders would need to either seek further funding or work second jobs.
It's also not just the money. It's credibility by being invested in mozilla (and an investor who is invested in you having more successful funding rounds), it's the marketing and hype that come with it, it's the opportunities to employ people, it's the connections that come from being acquainted with investors and a tech giant, etc.
Two people living on 38k a year sounds like a great way to not have legitimate talent apply.