Mozilla Foundation Announces 30% Staff Layoffs As Part of Strategic Restructure

The Mozilla Foundation intends to cut its present workforce by 30%.

As the company speeds up its work, Mozilla's VP of communications, Brandon Borrman, stated in a statement provided to SiliconRepublic.com that the reorganisation intends to "increase agility and impact."

To put more emphasis moving forward, that regrettably entails discontinuing some of the activities we have previously undertaken and removing related positions. He stated, "It represents about 30 percent of the current team, but we're not sharing a specific number."

The executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, Nabiha Syed, affirmed in an email to employees that the advocacy and global programs departments are "no longer part of our structure," according to prominent media outlet TechCrunch.

However, Borrman stated that "on the contrary, advocacy is still a central tenet of Mozilla Foundation's work and we are in the process of revisiting our approach to it," indicating that the reorganisation does not imply that advocacy has been abandoned.

The Mozilla Foundation is one of five organisations that make up Mozilla, the software business that created the Firefox browser. These include Mozilla Ventures, a tech-for-good investment fund; Mozilla AI, an artificial intelligence research and development centre; Mozilla Corporation, which oversees its consumer product development; and MZLA, which produces its open-source software project, Thunderbird.

Earlier this year, Mozilla experienced layoffs, although the most recent reorganisation mainly seemed to impact its non-profit division.

The company declared in February that it will shift its emphasis from some of its products to AI in Firefox. About 60 workers were laid off as a result of these layoffs, which followed a leadership transition at Mozilla when Mitchell Baker resigned as CEO after 25 years and nearly four years in the position.
To strengthen its emphasis on privacy in the internet advertising industry, Mozilla purchased the adtech start-up Anonym in June of this year.