Archive for March, 2023

March 31, or “three thirty-one,” is something of a talisman in the Mozilla community. It’s the date that, back in 1998, Mozilla first came into being — the date that we open-sourced the Netscape code for the world to use.

This year, “three thirty-one” is especially meaningful: It’s Mozilla’s 25 year anniversary.

A lot has changed since 1998. Mozilla is no longer just a bold idea. We’re a family of organizations — a nonprofit, a public benefit-corporation, and others — that builds products, fuels movements, and invests in responsible tech.

And we’re no longer a small group of engineers in Netscape’s Mountain View office. We’re technologists, researchers, and activists located around the globe — not to mention tens of thousands of volunteers.

But if a Mozillian from 1998 stepped into a Mozilla office (or joined a Mozilla video call) in 2023, I think they’d quickly feel something recognizable. A familiar spirit, and a familiar set of values.

When Mozilla open-sourced our browser code 25 years ago, the reason was the public interest: We wanted to spark more innovation, more competition, and more choice online. Technology in the public interest has been our manifesto ever since — whether releasing Firefox 1.0 in 2004, or launching Mozilla.ai earlier this year.

Right now, technology in the public interest seems more important than ever before. The internet today is deeply entwined with our personal lives, our professional lives, and society at large. The internet today is also flawed. Centralized control reduces choice and competition. A focus on “engagement” magnifies outrage, and bad actors are thriving.

Right now — and over the next 25 years — Mozilla can do something about this.

Mozilla’s mission and principles are evergreen, and we will continue to evolve to meet the needs and challenges of the modern internet. How people use the internet will change over time, but the need for innovative products that give individuals agency and choice on the internet is a constant. Firefox has evolved from a faithful and efficient render of web pages on PCs to a cross-platform agent that acts on behalf of the individual, protecting them from bad actors and surveillance capitalists as they navigate the web. Mozilla has introduced new products, such as Firefox Relay and Mozilla VPN, to keep people’s identity protected and activity private as they use the internet. Mozilla is contributing to healthy public discourse, with Pocket enabling discovery of amazing content and the mozilla.social Mastodon instance supporting decentralized, community-driven social media.

We’re constantly exploring ways to apply new technologies so that people feel the benefits in their everyday lives, as well as inspire others to responsibly innovate on behalf of humanity. As AI emerges as a core building block for the future of computing, we’ll turn our attention in that direction and ask: How can we make products and technologies like machine learning work in the public interest? We’ve already started this work via Mozilla.ai, a new Mozilla organization focusing on a trustworthy, independent, and open-source AI ecosystem. And via the Responsible AI Challenge, where we’re convening (and funding) bright people and ambitious projects building trustworthy AI.

And we will continue to champion public policy that keeps the internet healthy. There is proposed legislation around the world that seeks to maintain the internet in the public interest: the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA) in the U.S., the Digital Services Act (DSA) in the EU. Mozilla has helped shape these laws, and we will continue to follow along closely with their implementation and enforcement.

On this “three thirty-one,” I’m realistic about the challenges facing the internet. But I’m also optimistic about Mozilla’s potential to address them. And I’m looking forward to another 25 years of not just product, but also advocacy, philanthropy, and policy in service of a better internet.

As Mozilla reaches its 25th anniversary this year, we’re working hard to set up our ‘next chapter’ — thinking bigger and being bolder about how we can shape the coming era of the internet. We’re working to expand our product offerings, creating multiple options for consumers, audiences and business models. We’re growing our philanthropic and advocacy work that promotes trustworthy AI. And, we’re creating two new Mozilla companies, Mozilla.ai: to develop a trustworthy open source AI stack and Mozilla Ventures:  to invest in responsible tech companies. Across all of this, we’ve been actively recruiting new leaders who can help us build Mozilla for this next era.

With all of this in mind, we are seeking three new members for the Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors. These Board members will help grow the scope and impact of the Mozilla Project overall, working closely with the Boards of the Mozilla Corporation, Mozilla.ai and Mozilla Ventures. At least one of the new Board members will play a central role in guiding the work of the Foundation’s charitable programs, which focuses on movement building and trustworthy AI.

What is the role of a Mozilla board member?

I’ve written in the past about the role of the Board of Directors at Mozilla.

At Mozilla, our board members join more than just a board, they join the greater team and the whole movement for internet health. We invite our board members to build relationships with management, employees and volunteers. The conventional thinking is that these types of relationships make it hard for executives to do their jobs. We feel differently. We work openly and transparently, and want Board members to be part of the team and part of the community.

It’s worth noting that Mozilla is an unusual organization. As I wrote in our most recent annual report:

Mozilla is a rare organization. We’re activists for a better internet, one where individuals and societies benefit more from the effects of technology, and where competition brings consumers choices beyond a small handful of integrated technology giants.

We’re activists who champion change by building alternatives. We build products and compete in the consumer marketplace. We combine this with advocacy, policy, and philanthropic programs connecting to others to create change. This combination is rare.

It’s important that our Board members understand all this, including why we build consumer products and why we have a portfolio of organizations playing different roles. It is equally important that the Boards of our commercial subsidiaries understand why we run charitable programs within Mozilla Foundation that complement the work we do to develop products and invest in responsible tech companies.

What are we looking for?

At the highest level, we are seeking people who can help our global organization grow and succeed — and who ensure that we advance the work of the Mozilla Manifesto over the long run. Here is the full job description: https://mzl.la/MofoBoardJD2023

There are a variety of qualities that we seek in all Board members, including a cultural sense of Mozilla and a commitment to an open, transparent, community driven approach. We are also focused on ensuring the diversity of the Board, and fostering global perspectives.

As we recruit, we typically look to add specific skills or domain expertise to the Board. Current examples of areas where we’d like to add expertise include:

1. Mission-based business — experience creating, running or overseeing organizations that combine public benefit and commercial activities towards a mission.
2. Global, public interest advocacy – experience leading successful, large-scale public interest advocacy organizations with online mobilization and shaping public discourse on key issues at the core.
3. Effective ‘portfolio’ organizations – experience running or overseeing organizations that include a number of divisions, companies or non-profits under one umbrella, with an eye to helping the portfolio add up to more than the sum of its parts.

Finding the right people who match these criteria and who have the skills we need takes time. Board candidates will meet the existing board members, members of the management team, individual contributors and volunteers. We see this as a good way to get to know how someone thinks and works within the framework of the Mozilla mission. It also helps us feel comfortable including someone at this senior level of stewardship.

We want your suggestions

We are hoping to add three new members to the Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors over the next 18 months. If you have candidates that you believe would be good board members, send them to msurman@mozillafoundation.org. We will use real discretion with the names you send us.