Mozilla laying off 30% of staff, still laser focused on its broader targets

Rock Bottom: Mozilla recently embarked on a significant workforce restructuring effort, laying off 30 percent of its employees in the process. The Firefox maker hopes the changes will allow them to become more agile in order to better navigate the challenging technology landscape.

Brandon Borrman, Mozilla’s senior communications leader, stated that the organization is restructuring its internal teams to remain impactful amid the relentless evolution of technology and the web. Some of Mozilla’s past projects will be discontinued, as the organization shifts its focus going forward.

Mozilla reportedly had around 120 employees when the layoffs began, and dozens of staff had already been let go earlier this year. An email announcing the latest round of cuts was sent to all employees on October 30, with executive director Nabiha Syed confirming that the “advocacy” and “global programs” divisions are no longer part of the organization.

Despite the cut, Syed emphasized that advocacy remains central to Mozilla’s mission and will be absorbed into other, unspecified areas of the organization. The advocacy team previously led initiatives like Privacy Not Included, a project aimed at helping users make informed decisions and avoid companies with poor privacy practices.

Mozilla’s mission is more high-stakes than ever, Syed wrote in her email. “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,” she said. These are “distracting” times for an organization like Mozilla Foundation, making it critical for the team to focus on what truly matters.

The Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit, supports and leads open-source projects, including the Firefox web browser. Mozilla Corporation and MZLA Technologies Corporation, two subsidiaries, manage Firefox and the Thunderbird email client, respectively. The organization relies heavily on revenue from Google but is now grappling with increasingly challenging market conditions.

A recent US antitrust ruling against Google poses a potential existential threat to Mozilla’s future, despite efforts to explore new revenue streams and stay viable. Firefox continues to lose market share, and Mozilla’s leadership appears focused on pivoting to AI – an approach mirroring that of nearly every tech company today.