Ok, you didn't really answer most of my questions, but you did have a really long reply for one of them.

I'm still somewhat confused. Your description seems to contradict most your previous statements. You seem to be saying that the new management actually had to clean up after the old one because of all the bad decisions you claim were made. You seem to be saying that "the former management made terrible decisions for the company and product, but at least we all had a good time". I don't necessarily agree, but that seems to be the gist of what you are saying.

You are disappointed in the "new management" and yet your comment is about the "old management".

In fact, judging by your description, motivation at the company must have been at rock bottom even several years ago, when your previous comments would have people believe that everything was fine. Once again, I don't necessarily agree. I'm just going by your own description here.

> The company culture was egalitarian. Decisions were not made in some ivory tower

And those decisions, you later claim, were apparently the wrong ones. How does that fit your argument?

> Apple and Mozilla's products, at this time, struggled with the same site compatibility issues as we did in this Microsoft era.

I wouldn't say that. Mozilla had the advantage of the Netscape legacy, and Apple had the advantage of designers usually being on Macs (and despite its limited market share, Apple was loved by the press, giving the company far more influence than its market position would otherwise indicate).

> Not to mention the failed projects we poured resources into, draining all departments for the people they needed just to _catch_up_ to the competition.

Weren't these projects started by the old management, in the old egalitarian company culture you claim existed but is now gone?

> Suddenly, without warning, the guy next to you - who had been there for a decade - would be leaving.

But wasn't that his own decision? Wasn't that guy given the chance to choose himself whether to leave or not? Whether he felt he could live with the technology switch?

See, I have another problem with your criticism of the new management and praise of the old management. You mentioned the 2010 layoffs, and you seem to be saying that it was better to come up with what you claim was a bullshit excuse (economic downturn) to justify it? Once again I must stress that I am not saying that you are right or wrong as that is not my point. I'm questioning the consistency of your claims.

I think most people would agree that it's better to say nothing than to tell a lie. You seems to be accusing the old management of telling lies during the downsizing in 2010.

At least now we have made a major acquisition, which the management obviously could not discuss when the downsizing actually took place. It seems logical that one wishes to save money when buying something expensive, and try to avoid too large of a loan.

> When things got difficult, one would blame Microsoft, as if taking the moral high ground would make any difference.

Isn't this the old management again? And have you not just been arguing that taking the moral high ground is good? That morals are more important than doing what's right for the business? The egalitarian company which makes all the wrong decisions but everyone is having fun is better than the top management making a technology decision that some in the company may not agree with (or God forbid, passionate former employees do not agree with)?

> We should have thrown out that ugly ad-banner instantly. Dropped the old paid model the moment Phoenix came into existence.

You may not recall the round of layoffs back then. A company can't support further development without any revenue, after all. You can't just drop one of your main sources of revenue without knowing that you can replace it. And even when we did remove the ads, it was not certain that it would work. It probably would, but it was not a certainty.

> I spent seven years of my life on this project. Now it's gone.

Yes, I'm sure it's frustrating to see someting you've worked hard on for years disappear, but that doesn't mean it's the wrong decision.

Opera as you knew it is gone, you say. But the Opera you knew doesn't sound all that great if we are to judge by your passionate description of the state of affairs at the time.

All those decisions that you say were so terrible... they were made under the old "good management", in the culture you have just praised. It seems to me you can't have it both ways. You can't have engineers make all the decisions, and then first complain that this power was taken away from them, and later complain that the decision that were made under the system you praised were bad ones.

You want a technology-driven company where everyone gets to make or influence decisions, but you also claim that this led to major problems.

See, I can't get it to make any sense. While you seem passionate about this, it just doesn't sound logical or consistent.