CEO of Mozilla Announces He Is Stepping Down
Posted May 11, 2010 at 11:41pm by iClarified
John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla, is stepping down to join Greylock Partners as a Venture Partner.
Lilly became CEO of Mozilla in early 2008, after serving as its COO. He plans to stay on the Board of Directors but is departing because he has "really been missing working with startups".
Boomtown got a hold of his departure announcement to employees. You can read it below...
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Everyone,
As my five year anniversary at Mozilla approaches, Ive decided that its time for me to move on to my next role sometime later this year. This wont happen today or tomorrowI expect to be here and working for several months yet, and Im planning to stay on the Board of Directors.
This is a tough note for me to writeI feel so incredibly lucky and humbled to have worked on such an amazing project, with such spectacular people, for the last few years.
But Ive always been a startup guy at heartMozilla was originally going to be a quick volunteer effort for me, but quickly turned into a full time job, and at the beginning of 2008 turned into the CEO job that I have now. Ive really been missing working with startups, and want to learn how to invest in and build great new startups, so am planning to join Greylock Partners as a Venture Partner once we transition here.
Im in no rush, and the most important thing to me is to build the strongest Mozilla we can, with the best leadership possible. So my plan is to stay through that transitionwere starting a CEO search now, and plan to do it in as transparent a way as possiblewhich means Ill continue in my CEO role as normal for several more months, at least.
Ill have more to say on the transition as we figure things out more clearly, but for now, business as usual. Weve got Firefox 4 to ship, and Firefox on multiple mobile platforms. Weve got our web services like Weave to stand up and make available to millions of users.
For now, though, I really want to communicate a deep gratitude to each of youover the past few years weve done an amazing amount together, and changed the world in so many meaningful ways. 400 million users are directly touched every day by the work weve done so far, and many, many more are using better browsers because of our work. There are many more contributions and victories to come.
John
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Lilly became CEO of Mozilla in early 2008, after serving as its COO. He plans to stay on the Board of Directors but is departing because he has "really been missing working with startups".
Boomtown got a hold of his departure announcement to employees. You can read it below...
-----
Everyone,
As my five year anniversary at Mozilla approaches, Ive decided that its time for me to move on to my next role sometime later this year. This wont happen today or tomorrowI expect to be here and working for several months yet, and Im planning to stay on the Board of Directors.
This is a tough note for me to writeI feel so incredibly lucky and humbled to have worked on such an amazing project, with such spectacular people, for the last few years.
But Ive always been a startup guy at heartMozilla was originally going to be a quick volunteer effort for me, but quickly turned into a full time job, and at the beginning of 2008 turned into the CEO job that I have now. Ive really been missing working with startups, and want to learn how to invest in and build great new startups, so am planning to join Greylock Partners as a Venture Partner once we transition here.
Im in no rush, and the most important thing to me is to build the strongest Mozilla we can, with the best leadership possible. So my plan is to stay through that transitionwere starting a CEO search now, and plan to do it in as transparent a way as possiblewhich means Ill continue in my CEO role as normal for several more months, at least.
Ill have more to say on the transition as we figure things out more clearly, but for now, business as usual. Weve got Firefox 4 to ship, and Firefox on multiple mobile platforms. Weve got our web services like Weave to stand up and make available to millions of users.
For now, though, I really want to communicate a deep gratitude to each of youover the past few years weve done an amazing amount together, and changed the world in so many meaningful ways. 400 million users are directly touched every day by the work weve done so far, and many, many more are using better browsers because of our work. There are many more contributions and victories to come.
John
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Read More