I know your intention is probably well placed but we do though need to factor in revenues:
Year Revenue
---- -------
2007 $75M
2023 $653M
I bring this up because G&A of big companies (in general) always outpaces R&D once they hit scale ... and in an ideal situation - your revenues should outpace R&D expense because you're getting economies of scale (which further dilutes the R&D to Other Business Function comparison).
And Mozilla has hit scale / become "big company" - with those kinds of revenues.
The reason why G&A outpaces R&D, is because now you have all kinds of work to do that you don't have to do when your small/underdog, like:
- regulatory compliance
- legal
- privacy
- advocacy
- public relations
- etc...
When you're the underdog, you don't have to deal with these activities and as a result, your expense base is more heavily skewed toward R&D.
And Mozilla has hit scale / become "big company" - with those kinds of revenues.
The reason why G&A outpaces R&D, is because now you have all kinds of work to do that you don't have to do when your small/underdog, like:
- regulatory compliance
- legal
- privacy
- advocacy
- public relations
- etc...
When you're the underdog, you don't have to deal with these activities and as a result, your expense base is more heavily skewed toward R&D.