14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has already laid off tens of employees earlier this year, but here’s the organization announcing a second wave of layoffs as part of another attempt to reorganize.
In a long announcement published on the official blog, CEO Mitchell Baker points out that the company has been hit hard by the global health issue but at the same time, it also needs to find new ways to focus on what she describes as the five key points that could help the new organization work more effectively.
A total of 250 employees would be impacted by this new layoff program, work roles will be shifted for another 60.
Oddly enough, when discussing the five priorities for the company, Baker hasn’t even mentioned Firefox, which makes many wonder how Mozilla sees its flagship product in the long term.
Mozilla has been struggling to find new ways of generating revenue, and the recently announced Mozilla VPN is part of this plan, but as far as Firefox is concerned, there’s no doubt it’s the number one product that brings the company’s name on everybody’s lips.
Five areas of focus
At this point, however, Mozilla says it needs to focus on product, mindset, technology, community, and economics. No mention of Firefox, albeit technically, the browser could easily fall in the product, technology, and community categories.
But the economics part is probably the most important for Mozilla going forward.
“Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and alternate value exchanges,” Baker said.
“How can we lead towards business models that honor and protect people while creating opportunities for our business to thrive? How can we, or others who want a better internet, or those who feel like a different balance should exist between social and public benefit and private profit offer an alternative? We need to identify those people and join them. We must learn and expand different ways to support ourselves and build a business that isn’t what we see today.”
It remains to be seen how these plans affect Firefox in the long-term, and we’ve also reached out to Mozilla for some additional clarification on whether the layoffs concern engineers working on the browser or not.