The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.”
When reached by TechCrunch, Mozilla Foundation’s communications chief Brandon Borrman confirmed the layoffs in an email.
“The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all. That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward,” read the statement shared with TechCrunch.
According to its annual tax filings, the Mozilla Foundation reported having 60 employees during the 2022 tax year. The number of employees at the time of the layoffs was closer to 120 people, according to a person with knowledge. When asked by TechCrunch, Mozilla’s spokesperson did not dispute the figure.
This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of employees who work on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser.
Mozilla is made up of several organizations, one of which is the Mozilla Corporation, which develops Firefox and other technologies, and another is its nonprofit and tax-exempt Foundation, which oversees Mozilla’s corporate governance structure and sets the browser maker’s policies.
Much of Mozilla’s work focused on advocating for privacy, inclusion, and decentralization of technologies, and “to create safer, more transparent online experiences for everyone,” which ultimately benefit the browser maker and its users.
Announcing the layoffs in an email to all employees on October 30, the Mozilla Foundation’s executive director Nabiha Syed confirmed that two of the foundation’s major divisions — advocacy and global programs — are “no longer a part of our structure.”
After publication, Borrman told TechCrunch that “advocacy is still a central tenet of Mozilla Foundation’s work and will be embedded in all the other functional areas,” without providing specifics.
The move, according to Syed, is in part to produce a “unified, powerful narrative from the Foundation,” including revamping the foundation’s strategic communications.
“Our mission at Mozilla is more high-stakes than ever,” wrote Syed in an email to staff, a copy of which was shared with TechCrunch. “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.”
“Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus — and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won’t get us to the next peak. Lofty goals demand hard choices,” wrote Syed.
Syed, who joined the Mozilla Foundation in February, previously served as chief executive at data journalism and investigative news site The Markup.
Updated with comment from Mozilla.
