I know it is cool to hate on Mitchell Baker here. Lack of qualifications is not a valid criticism. She has a law degree from Berkley. Passed the California bar exam in '87. Was a high ranking lawyer in Netscape as their first legal hire. Designed the Mozilla Public License. Created the Mozilla Foundation. She has been in executive roles for 20-30 years.
Yes. Mitchell Baker had every top job at Mozilla from 1999 to 2008. She was the Mozilla project's general manager, Mozilla Foundation's 1st president, and Mozilla Corporation's 1st CEO. She could be the wrong CEO for Mozilla now. But it couldn't be for inexperience.
It is used _in the book_ as a pejorative. That is the explanation from the definition that I link to.
The problem when a prominent wealthy company attempts to run its business on the basis of meritocracy is illustrated by the existence of projects such as GNOME, systemd, Wayland, and Flatpak.
Who said anything about qualifications? She is a terrible CEO because she knows nothing about web browsers, and clearly couldn't care less about her companies products. Why would anyone ever make a lawyer a CEO of anything except a law firm? It's a self evidently terrible idea and the results are exactly what you'd expect.
Leadership's extensive knowledge of web browsers hasn't exactly been the silver bullet to guarantee Mozilla's future, given past performance. Technological superiority is less relevant when your opponents are monopolists who are making deals with each other to interlock their hardware and software.
Perhaps in a world where the largest threats to Mozilla's survival as a company are corporate maneuvering and deal making, a lawyer is the best CEO to choose by meritocracy argument.