Significant changes at Mozilla Corporation

Significant changes at Mozilla Corporation ↦

Today Mitchell Baker, CEO of Mozilla Corporation, shared news of big changes taking place at Mozilla in the wake of COVID-19. In addition to the changes noted below, Mozilla is also laying off 250 employees while it makes these changes.

…going forward we will be smaller. We’ll also be organizing ourselves very differently, acting more quickly and nimbly. We’ll experiment more. We’ll adjust more quickly. We’ll join with allies outside of our organization more often and more effectively. We’ll meet people where they are. We’ll become great at expressing and building our core values into products and programs that speak to today’s issues. We’ll join and build with all those who seek openness, decency, empowerment and common good in online life.

This internal document includes the details about the restructuring and other specifics.

I’ve reached out to Mitchell via LinkedIn messages to invite her on The Changelog for deep dive into the future of the internet. If you or anyone you might know has a direct connection to Mitchell, please pass this invitation on to her — we’d love to have her on the show.

Discussion

2020-08-12T17:49:05Z ago

Just read on Frontend Focus that this layoff is “a quarter of their entire workforce, which reportedly includes both the DevTools and MDN teams.”

Anyone have any insider visibility or connections to talk about this news?

2020-08-12T21:03:07Z ago

This quote from ZDNet’s coverage seems to hit the nail on the head:

Furthermore, Mozilla’s contract with Google to include Google as the default search provider inside Firefox is set to expire later this year, and the contract has not been renewed. The Google deal has historically accounted for around 90% of all of Mozilla’s revenue, and without it experts see a dim future for Mozilla past 2021.

When 90% of your revenue comes from a single source and said source also happens to compete directly with your flagship product… you are not well-positioned. It’s a sad day, indeed, for the web and for all of the great folks (many of whom we consider friends) who are now without work.

2020-08-12T21:22:03Z ago

Dang. Yes, that’s a pretty great insight from ZDNet on what’s happening here. Obviously, there was no mention of that contract and that loss of revenue in that internal document.

2020-08-24T13:13:09Z ago

Seems like perhaps that was a red herring, as Mozilla inked a fresh deal with Google shortly after the lay offs…

However, our source told us Moz will likely pocket $400m to $450m a year between now and 2023 from the arrangement, citing internal discussions held earlier this year.