I don’t have much detail beyond the Mozilla blog post announcing the layoffs, but given that Mozilla has a substantial Portland footprint — they only mention closing an operation in Taipei, Taiwan, specifically — I’m concerned this will affect the office here and the Portland startup community. So I wanted to give you a heads up.
Today we announced a significant restructuring of Mozilla Corporation. This will strengthen our ability to build and invest in products and services that will give people alternatives to conventional Big Tech. Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce by approximately 250 people. These are individuals of exceptional professional and personal caliber who have made outstanding contributions to who we are today. To each of them, I extend my heartfelt thanks and deepest regrets that we have come to this point. This is a humbling recognition of the realities we face, and what is needed to overcome them.
If there is any upside to this announcement and restructuring, it’s that Mozilla is doubling down on community.
New focus on community. Mozilla must continue to be part of something larger than ourselves, part of the group of people looking for a better internet. Our open source volunteers today — as well as the hundreds of thousands of people who donate to and participate in Mozilla Foundation’s advocacy work — are a precious and critical part of this. But we also need to go further and think about community in new ways. We must be increasingly open to joining others on their missions, to contribute to the better internet they’re building.
More information as this develops. It should be noted that the only reason that this much is currently available is because Mozilla was transparent with it.
For more information, read the Mozilla blog post, the internal memo released by Mozilla, or this coverage of the situation from Vice.
