Mozilla

Upcoming: A Year in Europe

May 16th, 2012

Mozilla is an increasingly global community.  This is important to the success of our mission. If we hope to have a world of openness and opportunity for all we should be building centers of gravity in many different locales.  Silicon Valley in California is still the center of a big chunk of the Internet industry, but Mozilla’s commitment to the Internet as a global public resource means we in particular focus on building leaders in many other places.

With this in mind my family and I have decided to get ourselves out of California for a bit.    We’re planning to move to Barcelona next September for a year.  Barcelona is not only in the heart of Europe, it’s much closer to the middle east and Africa, and it’s no further from the east coast of Latin America than California.  (Although getting to Asia may be a longer trip.)  I expect to be able to spend much more time with many more local Mozilla communities.

This is a change of geography, not of commitment to Mozilla.  I expect to spend more time meeting Mozillians and more time focusing on project  dynamics.  I want to strengthen the ability for local leaders to become regional and global leaders in Mozilla.

I also expect to spend more time representing Mozilla to governments, policy-makers and other organizations interested in Mozilla and the Internet. By being located in Europe, we will be able to give more support to the critical issues being discussed in that region.  I will also stay involved in our product efforts, as these are so key to have we achieve our mission.    Perhaps I’ll find the time to do some of the writing that would be so helpful.

I’m not (yet???) a Spanish-speaker, so I will undoubtedly spend a bunch of time off-balance and trying to figure out how basic things work.

September will be here soon.   We’re excited!

Categories: Mozilla

26 comments for “Upcoming: A Year in Europe”

  1. 1

    Ken Saunders said on May 16th, 2012 at 8:51 pm:

    Wow, very exciting.

    I’ll be sure to keep everything running smoothly here while you’re away. 🙂

  2. 2

    Mitchell Baker said on May 16th, 2012 at 9:18 pm:

    Thanks Ken, it will help to rely on you!

  3. 3

    Ove Larsen said on May 16th, 2012 at 9:54 pm:

    Great news Michell.
    Europe need at lot of work on OpenWeb – and related stuff.

    Hope to be able to invite you to our annual OpenSourceDays here in Denmark in the beginning of March 2013 as soon as we get the date fixed for it.

    Best
    /Ove

  4. 4

    Ludovic said on May 17th, 2012 at 12:44 am:

    And you’ll probably learn catalan before you learn spanish 🙂

  5. 5

    iacchi said on May 17th, 2012 at 12:49 am:

    Wow, that’s a big change! I’m sure you’ll love the city, and Europe in general; it’s not an easy challenge, though.

    What can I say… Good luck, starting from now, for the moving!

  6. 6

    Nukeador said on May 17th, 2012 at 1:06 am:

    You will be more than welcome in Spain 😉

  7. 7

    Funtom said on May 17th, 2012 at 1:50 am:

    Mitchell, does your family’s decision have something to do with Telefonica’s support of B2G on its entry-level smartphones?
    Anyway, good luck!

  8. 8

    dsanchezbote said on May 17th, 2012 at 1:56 am:

    Bienvenida! If you need some help with the language, here we are a lot of people to help you

  9. 9

    Gervase Markham said on May 17th, 2012 at 4:20 am:

    Awesome! 🙂 I’m sure you’ll receive a very warm welcome.

  10. 10

    Mitchell Baker said on May 17th, 2012 at 7:03 pm:

    Funton

    We’ve been thinking about this since before Mozilla started working with Telefonica. It’s a lucky coincidence though!

    nukeador, dsanchezvote: thanks for the support. I imagine we’ll need help somewhere along the line 🙂

  11. 11

    jonathan said on May 18th, 2012 at 1:47 am:

    Not only are you going to have a great time, but many Mozillians in Europe will be delighted to see you move closer to them. Great decision!

  12. 12

    Ioana Chiorean ( said on May 18th, 2012 at 4:54 am:

    All Mozillians from Europe are looking forward to see you here.. I hope you will enjoy the time youțll be spending here!

  13. 13

    willycat said on May 18th, 2012 at 7:31 am:

    vive la France !!

  14. 14

    Cidem said on May 18th, 2012 at 9:14 am:

    Lets just hope Spain won’t default by September…. Its a tough situation over there right now. They surely need investment and companies that hire (21% unemployment). Will you be hiring there?

  15. 15

    Shyam Mani said on May 18th, 2012 at 6:57 pm:

    I had completely forgotten about this till I saw the post 🙂 have fun in Barcelona!

  16. 16

    Dan said on May 20th, 2012 at 1:31 pm:

    I assume this means that you’ll be visiting the European offices at some point during the year, as well as attending the Mozilla Festival again? 🙂

  17. 17

    Guillermo said on May 23rd, 2012 at 9:56 am:

    And next year south America 🙂

  18. 18

    France said on June 5th, 2012 at 11:27 am:

    What’s Taking place i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I have discovered It absolutely useful and it has aided me out loads. I hope to contribute & aid different customers like its aided me. Great job.

  19. 19

    Jack said on June 19th, 2012 at 2:06 am:

    Dear Mozilla,I am Mozilla Taiwan Community,

    Website:
    http://status.mozilla.com/11627/141985/ … ozilla.org

    In the status mozilla page,you mistakenly list Taiwan as part of China.

    Taiwan is not part of China,Taiwan is an independent country with its own government, elections, currency, army, and defined territory.

    We are Taiwanese from the country called Taiwan.We are not part of China,or Special Administrative Region(SAR).

    Thank you for your attention.

  20. 20

    Pep Payo said on June 23rd, 2012 at 10:40 am:

    +1 Ludovic!

    Hope you’ll fins & learn more than you expect!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_people

    Benvinguda!

  21. 21

    Pep Payo said on June 23rd, 2012 at 10:42 am:

    finD, I wanna mean, sorry! 😉

  22. 22

    Rami said on June 25th, 2012 at 1:30 pm:

    Cool there will be no more jetlag when you are in our region 🙂

  23. 23

    Marc said on July 13th, 2012 at 4:56 am:

    Welcome. I wish you’ll realize you are coming to Catalonia, not Spain. If you want to a deeply contact with the Catalan capital, you must learn Catalan language.

  24. 24

    Dídac said on July 13th, 2012 at 6:39 am:

    Doncs benvinguda a Catalunya!

    Amb sort, quan hi siguis, ja no estaràs a Espanya.

    –
    Welcome to Catalonia!

    Maybe when you come, you’ll be no longer in Spain 🙂

  25. 25

    Jordi said on July 13th, 2012 at 9:45 am:

    You will be welcome at Barcelona! 😉

  26. 26

    David said on July 13th, 2012 at 11:04 am:

    Welcome to Catalonia!

    Don’t worry about language because meny people, young people, will understand you if you spek English slowly and clear.

    And you can search for help from any linguistic volunteer. I will not link to their webpages because you removed my previous comment about that.

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