Mozilla is the latest in a long line of tech companies lay off employees this year. The nonprofit is laying off about 60 people, about five percent of its workforce. Most of those who left Mozilla worked on the product development team. News first reported the news Bloomberg.
“We are reducing investment in some product areas to focus on areas where we feel we have the greatest chance of success,” a Mozilla spokesperson told Engadget. “To do this, we have taken the difficult decision to eliminate around 60 roles across the company. We intend to focus resources on products like Firefox Mobile, where there is significant opportunity to grow and create a better model for the industry.”
according to the internal memory accessed by TechCrunch, Mozilla plans to reduce investments in several products, including a tool that automatically deletes user personal data from VPN and data broker sites. The company announced the latter just a week ago. Hublar, a 3D virtual world Mozilla It debuted in 2018is closing while the company is also reducing resources dedicated to its Mastodon prototype.
One area that Mozilla plans to put additional resources into is, unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence. “In 2023, generative artificial intelligence began to rapidly change the industry landscape. Mozilla seized the opportunity to bring reliable artificial intelligence to Firefox. The main reason for this is the acquisition of Fakespot and the work of integrating the product,” the information says. “Additionally, finding great content is still a critical use case for the web. So as part of today’s changes, we’re bringing together PocketContent and AI/ML teams supporting content with the Firefox Organization.”
The reorganization follows Mozilla’s appointment of a new CEO last week. Former Airbnb, PayPal and eBay executive Laura Chambers, who joined Mozilla’s board three years ago, has been named CEO for the remainder of this year. “His focus will be on delivering successful products that advance our mission and building platforms that accelerate,” said Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s former longtime executive and new executive chairman. he wrote When Chambers started.
