Mozilla Foundation Lays Off 30% Staff, Drops Advocacy Division (techcrunch.com) 53
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a "relentless onslaught of change." When reached by TechCrunch, Mozilla Foundation's communications chief Brandon Borrman confirmed the layoffs in an email. "The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all. That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward," read the statement shared with TechCrunch.
According to its annual tax filings, the Mozilla Foundation reported having 60 employees during the 2022 tax year. The number of employees at the time of the layoffs was closer to 120 people, according to a person with knowledge. When asked by TechCrunch, Mozilla's spokesperson did not dispute the figure. This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of employees who work on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser. [...] Announcing the layoffs in an email to all employees on October 30, the Mozilla Foundation's executive director Nabiha Syed confirmed that two of the foundation's major divisions -- advocacy and global programs -- are "no longer a part of our structure." The move, according to Syed, is in part to produce a "unified, powerful narrative from the Foundation," including revamping the foundation's strategic communications. "Our mission at Mozilla is more high-stakes than ever," said Syed. "We find ourselves in a relentless onslaught of change in the technology (and broader) world, and the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical."
"Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus -- and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won't get us to the next peak. Lofty goals demand hard choices."
According to its annual tax filings, the Mozilla Foundation reported having 60 employees during the 2022 tax year. The number of employees at the time of the layoffs was closer to 120 people, according to a person with knowledge. When asked by TechCrunch, Mozilla's spokesperson did not dispute the figure. This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of employees who work on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser. [...] Announcing the layoffs in an email to all employees on October 30, the Mozilla Foundation's executive director Nabiha Syed confirmed that two of the foundation's major divisions -- advocacy and global programs -- are "no longer a part of our structure." The move, according to Syed, is in part to produce a "unified, powerful narrative from the Foundation," including revamping the foundation's strategic communications. "Our mission at Mozilla is more high-stakes than ever," said Syed. "We find ourselves in a relentless onslaught of change in the technology (and broader) world, and the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical."
"Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus -- and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won't get us to the next peak. Lofty goals demand hard choices."
There we go: (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical.
Oops. Somebody said the quiet part out loud. This should just be stamped on all our foreheads at birth at this point. It seems to be the focus of our entire species now.
Greed is God. Profit before all.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that seems like a false choice. Putting "people before profit" doesn't mean they have to spread out into all sorts of other time-and-energy-wasting channels. Focussing on Firefox and Thunderbird might be the best "people before profit" thing they can do.
Mozilla's always seemed like it was afflicted with a weird corporate manifestation of Zawinsky's Law [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Zawinsky's Law always makes me think of Emacs. It can be a good editor. It's also a toaster, a coffee maker, and a breakfast cereal.
Re: (Score:3)
If you make a browser you’re just a geek.
If you advocate for global change you’re a thought leader or something. I assume it gets more chicks than improving your JavaScript VM benchmark performance. More cocktail parties and less thinking anyway.
Re:There we go: (Score:5, Insightful)
And what has Mozilla done with all that money? Fancy offices in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the country, lots of pointless bullshit ("advocacy" and "global programs") and not much else. Meanwhile, the Thunderbird e-mail client is reduced to begging for money from the public because Mozilla's brain-dead management can't be bothered to throw them a few dollars.
Dear Mozilla,
Fuck you.
Re: (Score:2)
Good summary. Imagine getting $3B from your main competitor and then crying like you're the victim.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, those are real numbers?
I'm pretty sure 95% of slashdot could manage to hire a team to make a better browser with $450m / year in free money.
And oh yeah we could make a better email client, too. Just for kicks.
Yet somehow with $450m they can't afford 120 employees? Super nutso.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder what the CEO's salary is. In non-profits, all the employees get screwed because "we don't have the money" but the people at the top are always exempt, and almost always are the cause of most of the problems.
Typically, non-profits run on the same premise as any other business, just that at the end of the year, anything left over goes right to the C-Suite bonus pool so as not to leave any pesky profits laying around for the auditors to find.
Re: (Score:3)
Hindsight is 20/20 but... (Score:3)
Money is social status. It's social power. And political power. But for most, it is the only means of acquiring the basic necessities for survival.
We have made a pretty F'd up system for ourselves.
Re: (Score:3)
[...] the idea of putting people before profit feels increasingly radical.
Oops. Somebody said the quiet part out loud. This should just be stamped on all our foreheads at birth at this point. It seems to be the focus of our entire species now.
Greed is God. Profit before all.
Computing is a business, from top to bottom, and always has been. Maybe, just maybe, if the Mozilla people had run their org like one, they wouldn't be in deep shit. But Mozilla became a political organization wearing a tech company's skin.
Somewhere, Brendan Eich is kicking back and having a deeply satisfying glass of Scotch.
LOL well finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally a bit of sense
Advocacy and Global ...
Right really excellent software speaks for itself. Mozilla would be in a much better place today if they had stayed on mission and focused on raising money to write best of breed web software, from user-agents to services and server and a lot of the script and application framework in between.
Instead they forgot they were a technology group and decided to do politics and social issues. Congrats on massive market share losses, and increasing wide technical gulf between the only really free browser engine and its corporate controlled competitors.. bravo...
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox was leapfrogged technology-wise by Google all the way back in 2008. They've been falling behind ever since. Not surprising considering the resources Google has.
Re: (Score:1)
Google's always been much better than Mozilla at spyware and disabling useful extensions.
Re: (Score:3)
Not surprising considering the resources Google has.
In 2013, Mozilla was using its resources to sponsor a surfing contest in Hawaii [mozilla.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't have to have the best tech. Just the tech that people want.
Make it fast, on all platforms
Make it secure
Give it sensible defaults but make it configurable (and extendable)
It does NOT have to be and look like Chrome
There is probably one or two more things that could be added, but I am sure if they managed to get that right, the numbers would speak for themselves.
Thunderbird, on the other hand. This has plenty of opportunities. A better Exchange/x365 client than Outlook, that would be great. Also, coul
Re: (Score:3)
It's not "if they got it right". They had it right. They decided to squander getting it right with other crap to the point that even the peop
Re:LOL well finally (Score:5, Informative)
"Advocacy" has become a dirty word to a lot of people lately, but it can be important.
Mozilla has advocated for:
- Free and open web standards
- Rejection of the Microsoft monopoly of the web browser.
- Rejection of the Google monopoly of the web browser.
- Privacy by default when using the web.
- Preventing the tracking and monitoring of people as they use the web.
- No DRM support (or at least minimal) built into the browser.
- True user control over their browser: user scripts an styles, extensions unfettered by competing corporate interests, open source, etc.
No doubt there's more I'm not coming up with off-hand. You might disagree with some of their positions, but most of these are innately important goals if you want a healthy Internet. They complement, not replace, creating "excellent software".
Re:LOL well finally (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that is true; however a quick look at the linked bio's makes it abundantly clear those were not the topic they advocacy group was really focused on.
They might have also spend their time pushing those things but they were not the passion projects. They should have been sure, but we know they werent. If they were they would have hired someone like RMS, or Bruce Schneier, or someone else with a history in the Open Source or Privacy movements.
Re: (Score:2)
>If they were they would have hired someone like RMS, or Bruce Schneier, or someone else with a history in the Open Source or Privacy movements.
Good point.
Re: (Score:2)
>"however a quick look at the linked bio's makes it abundantly clear those were not the topic they advocacy group was really focused on."
^^^ This
It seems they were more interested in social stuff and "equity" nonsense than in pushing for diversity in browers, which is what we really need/needed. I say "seems" because that was quite visible. I don't know what resources were really spent on what.
Re: (Score:3)
Still too glib (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
This has nothing to do with Mozilla.
FWIW I voted today in PA and it was a very smooth procedure. It helped that it was a short ballot form, with no judges and local county officials on it (unlike what I was used to from being in MN for the past decade.)
Getting back on topic I hope they have fired the people that want to mess with the UI every few weeks instead of just fixing the bugs.
Re: (Score:2)
No, dumbass. What they're doing in PA is sequestering all the ballots in locked, tamper-proof boxes. Once the machines are running they will, with witnesses present, scan all the ballots to get their final tabulations.
Everything is a g
Re: (Score:2)
This left wing insanity (...)
There's nothing "left wing" in woke ideas. They're liberal, not socialist. You know, Liberalism? The political doctrine about individual liberties and rights, free enterprise, free markets, one person one vote, all under the rule of law? The one system actual Socialists allied with actual Fascists over and over to, together, fight against? Yes, that Liberalism.
Sure, completely-on-the-right Liberalism is to the left of current Republican policies, but then almost everyone, including most traditional Conserva
Interface Destruction Team (Score:3)
Who keeps making usability more difficult?
Re: (Score:2)
>"Who keeps making usability more difficult?"
And, yet, it isn't any worse than the only other significant multi-platform browser, Chrom*. The problem was copying what the competition did instead of sticking to their long-held principles.
[Not directed to the poster] I get tired of people saying they are switching away from Firefox because of UI, when what they are switching TO is (IMHO) considerably worse, or at minimum very similar in that regard.... And in the process of doing so, they throw away priv
"increase agility" (Score:2)
Whenever a company wants to "increase agility" (or the equivalent), what it really means is "we're screwed, we need to lay off a bunch of people because we can't afford to keep them".
They lost the mobile market (Score:2)
Re:They lost the mobile market (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile desktop Firefox's only feature left of note is ublock support, ...
I disagree. Firefox's cookie management is head and shoulders above that of every other web browser.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
But I sure hope they continue supporting it because it is the basis for the DuckDuckGo browser that I prefer.
I'll be damned to use Chrome or Edge, there is already enough spying on an Android phone.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>"Meanwhile desktop Firefox's only feature left of note is ublock support"
Strongly disagree.
* Firefox is more permissive with addons (what you already mentioned, indirectly; but it is more than just uBlock Origin).
* Firefox is more configurable through about:config
* Firefox is more customizable with userChrome
* Firefox has better privacy
* Firefox has better cookie management options
* Some would argue it has a smaller memory footprint
I am sure I missed some. And that is while being at least as secure and
mobile: Thunderbird (Score:2)
Thunderbird just took over K-9 Mail. I've loved K-9, but I'm not optimistic about the new branding and future changes.
They need to get a clue (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
They can't really do this though... because they are turning themselves into an advertising company. See https://www.reddit.com/r/firef... [reddit.com]
Odd (Score:2)
It strikes me a bit odd that Mozilla is struggling when Google Chrome is threatening to push ads harder.
The bullshit never ends (Score:2)
"The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all. That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward,"
The fact that this word salad passes as significant, meaningful communication is both sad and terrifying. A once vital and ground-breaking organization - one which has contributed so much to the tech landscape - has been reduced to buzz-phrases which were already cliches by the first time they were ever written or spoken.
It's sad because what we say often indicates how we think as well as what we think - and the "thinking" indicated by this drivel would explain how far Mozilla has fallen. It's terrifying be
60 employees? (Score:2)
Can someone tell me what they are doing with their prime real estate that is in San Francisco? Because it seems absurd when you look at the downward trajectory of the company