Mozilla has announced job cuts, as new products designed to boost revenues take longer to come online. Around 70 positions will be eliminated to start, Techcrunch reports from an internal memo sent by the Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker.
The company confirmed the restructuring plans in a blog post, but did not provide details. Baker said the group was making a significant investment in innovation and new products, which led to some difficult decisions to eliminate jobs and reallocate resources.
According to Techcrunch, the number of job cuts may still be higher, as the company is still assessing staff numbers in the UK and France. In total the company had around 1,000 employees in 2018.
Baker told staff that new subscription products expected to be earning revenue in 2019 and 2020 have not born fruit yet. The 2019 plan underestimated how long it would take to build and ship the new products, and as a result the company is taking a more conservative approach to 2020 projections, she said.
Baker says the affected employees would receive “generous exit packages” and outplacement support. She also notes that management looked into shutting down the Mozilla innovation fund but decided that it needed it in order to continue developing new products.
In total, Mozilla is dedicating USD 43 million to building new products. The aim is to reduce its reliance on search revenues and develop new products such as a subscription VPN and other privacy tools for web users.
