{"id":6559,"date":"2020-08-11T20:24:57","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T20:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/mozilla-fires-250-employees-25-percent-of-existing-workforce\/"},"modified":"2020-08-11T20:24:57","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T20:24:57","slug":"mozilla-fires-250-employees-25-percent-of-existing-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/mozilla-fires-250-employees-25-percent-of-existing-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozilla Fires 250 Employees, 25 Percent of Existing Workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mozilla Fires 250 Employees, 25 Percent of Existing Workforce<\/h2>\n

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Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the development of the Firefox web browser, has announced it is firing 250 people or roughly one-quarter of its workforce. The company\u2019s blog post announcing these changes reads like some kind of utopian fan fiction. It declares \u201cChanging World, Changing Mozilla\u201d before opening with: \u201cThis is a time of change for the internet and for Mozilla. From combatting a lethal virus and battling systemic racism to protecting individual privacy \u2014 one thing is clear: an open and accessible internet is essential to the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yeah!\u201d you might be thinking. \u201cMozilla is going to ramp up its efforts to win market share, so that the entire internet isn\u2019t dominated by Chrome, with a small carve-out for Safari!\u201d CEO Mitchell Baker continues with:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Just, you know\u2026 not enough to keep them around.<\/p>\n

Firefox still uses its own Gecko rendering engine but holds less than five percent market share. It isn\u2019t untoward for the organization to be working to increase those figures and it isn\u2019t a bad idea to jettison projects that won\u2019t be helpful towards the end goal, but Mozilla\u2019s public-facing letter doesn\u2019t communicate any meaningful detail on its plans for the future.<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/www.extremetech.com\/\"<\/p>\n

Internet browser share, 2020. Image by Statista<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We are told that \u201cMozilla must be a world-class, modern, multi-product internet organization,\u201d that upholding its values is important, and that the company\u2019s mindset needs to change from defending and protecting the internet as a platform to one that is \u201cproactive, curious, and engaged.\u201d The company will supposedly look for more opportunities to partner with other companies and to work with them on what they\u2019re attempting to accomplish \u2014 which doesn\u2019t necessarily square with the idea that it\u2019s going to also double down on upholding its values, particularly when Point #5 of the letter is: \u201cNew focus on economics.\u201d Here, Mozilla acknowledges that giving everything away for free hasn\u2019t been a sustainable business model \u2014 something any journalist writing today would typically agree with \u2014 while then declaring that Mozilla must find new methods of monetization that honor and protect people.<\/p>\n

The internally facing memo sent to staff has a little more meat on it. All operations in Taipei are being closed. In addition to the 250 job losses, some 60 people will be reassigned. It\u2019s making investments in Pocket, Hubs, VPN, Web Assembly, and various security and privacy products. Two new teams, focused on design and UX (user experience) will be created, and a new ML feature team will be assembled to add machine learning to Firefox. The future of projects such as Rust wasn\u2019t discussed in either letter, but since Rust is now baked into Firefox and has been a fairly successful project, the organization will presumably continue to devote resources to its development.<\/p>\n

Firefox\u2019s survival is important to the long-term future of the internet, given the complete lack of any real competition for Chrome in the PC arena. Apple provides Safari as an alternative for Mac users, but the company hasn\u2019t built a PC version of the browser for a long time and the chances that we\u2019ll see one in the future once Apple goes ARM are nil. Historically, it\u2019s never been good for the browser market to be dominated by a single company and Google has already shown a distinct willingness to push changes that benefit itself rather than the online community at large.<\/p>\n

Feature image freely available via Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n

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