Dear Mozilla community
Today Mozilla announced some significant changes. The tl;dr is that Mozilla Corporation is undergoing a significant reorganization, as well as a reduction in the number of employees of about 25%.
The best explanation for these changes is in our blog post and in the message to employees that we included in the post. There is important information and context in these messages, and I believe it will be very helpful to read these when you have a moment
As part of the changes described in the announcements, our community and developer relations programs will also change. I noted in the public blog post that one of Mozilla’s goals is a new focus on community, where our community members are more closely connected to the core work of the organization. That work will be a central part of our future.
The restructuring today is primarily focused on building a new form of product development org, to accelerate the development and launch of new products for impact. For Mozilla, products and community go hand in hand, so we see this product focus as good for everyone. As described in the blog post, this will be the basis for our renewed 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.
This work will start shortly and will happen in the open. We hope that you will find it exciting and that you will want to be involved.
Sadly, the reduction in force impacts the people who many of our community members know and work with. We will be saying goodbye to some good friends and colleagues across the company.
We understand that this raises many questions. Please keep in mind that this information is new to our employees as well. Everyone is absorbing this and there are still many things for us to figure out in relation to next steps. We’re sending this note now so that you’ll understand why you might not get responses this week, and that there will be changes. Many of the people you work with won’t yet be able to answer questions you may have given how new this news is to them.
Please bear with us as we — volunteers and employees – will need time to process these changes and absorb the restructuring and our new increased focus on new product development.
Once we’ve all had some time to absorb we can dive back in, answer questions, and plan for the future. That future is important. Fixing the internet is a huge goal: it will take all of us and more. New products, new communities and a new mindset are key to Mozilla’s future. And we want Mozilla to be a key driver of a future where the internet and online life are healthier, accessible to more people, and bring new forms of opportunity.