Mozilla lays off 70 people as non-search revenue fails to materialize
Mozilla has laid off 70 people, TechCrunch reports. It's a significant move for an organization that employs around 1,000 people worldwide.
"You may recall that we expected to be earning revenue in 2019 and 2020 from new subscription products as well as higher revenue from sources outside of search," wrote Mozilla interim CEO Mitchell Baker in a memo to staff obtained by TechCrunch. "This did not happen."
Baker said Mozilla had decided not to shelve Mozilla's $43 million innovation fund, which focuses on creating new Mozilla products. She said Mozilla would provide "generous exit packages and outplacement support" to those who were let go. Each year, companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to be the default search engine in Mozilla's flagship Firefox browser. Google has been Mozilla's primary customer over the years, but at various times Mozilla has also had deals with Yahoo!, Yandex, Baidu, and other search providers. In recent years, these deals have accounted for more than 90 percent of Mozilla's revenue.
