Activeloop (YC S18) is hiring a VP of Engineering in Mountain View (on-site) (careers.activeloop.ai)

This is based on the revelation that Firefox (and I'm assuming Mozilla itself) relies on at least 85-90% of its operating revenue from Google's search deals. For decades now, Mozilla insisted and promoted that it was a non-profit independent organization, and that extended to Firefox. That 85-90% revenue figure is now calling 15-20 years of those statements into question for me.

So let's discuss this: Was Mozilla actually ever as independent as they've claimed? Or were they just a tax dodge for Google?

Comments (5)

dabockster · 12h ago

Something else I just found (literally from two days ago):

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1kdc02o/firefox_co...

> I don't think that people understand what interest Google has in paying Mozilla so much for, let's be honest, so little.

> Louis Rossmann explained it the best to me - Google pays Mozilla so much only to keep them alive to prevent antitrust litigation if Blink becomes basically the only browser engine left for Windows.

Looks like the courts might be understanding that relationship and declaring that illegal as well.

solardev · 13h ago

Mozilla was started by Netscape a few years before Chrome came out. So presumably they had a few years of Netscape money rather than Google's. But I believe they were always dependent on corporate money from one source or another (like many nonprofits are). Except in their case, there was a very clear conflict of interest that the board did nothing about for decades...

dabockster · 15h ago

I also want to add that I 1000% fault Mozilla on this for not diversifying their funding over the years. They knew that this much of their funding was that dependent on Google and they ignored it while, at the same time, advertising themselves as some kind of independent organization. They could have began seriously trying to decouple themselves from Google, but have seemingly repeatedly chose not to.

So how do we know that Google doesn't have their thumb on Firefox right now behind the scenes? Because looking back, Firefox always appeared to compete with Chrome - but I'm now seeing that it only competed "enough" as to possibly create an illusion of true competition. Could Google possibly have influenced this behavior?

WorldPeas · 14h ago

well google's product leadership style certainly rubbed off on them. If they actually had the dedication to stick to products rather than shed them at a moment's notice people may've been more confident in using them.

jqpabc123 · 14h ago

Just follow the money.

Instant (YC S22) Is Hiring a Founding TypeScript Engineer (instantdb.com)

Jiga (YC W21) Is Hiring Engineers (workatastartup.com)

KaiPod Learning (YC S21) Is Hiring VP of Engineering (ycombinator.com)

Hightouch (YC S19) Is Hiring (ycombinator.com)

Helpcare AI (YC F24) Is Hiring (docs.google.com)

Stellar Sleep (YC S23) is hiring a product engineer in SF (ycombinator.com)

OneText (YC W23) Is Hiring a DevOps/DBA Lead Engineer

Toma (YC W24) Is Hiring Engs #3-4 (AI for Automotive) (ycombinator.com)

Waypoint Transit (YC W25) is hiring a software engineer (workatastartup.com)

GroMo (YC W21) Is Hiring (ycombinator.com)

Archil (YC F24) Is Hiring a Distributed Systems Engineer (In-Person, SF)

Modern Realty (YC S24) Is Hiring (workatastartup.com)

Hestus, Inc. (YC S24) Is Hiring an ML Engineer to Revolutionize CAD (ycombinator.com)

Activeloop (YC S18) is hiring a VP of Engineering in Mountain View (on-site) (careers.activeloop.ai)

Optery (YC W22) – Engineering Team Lead and Engineers with Node.js (U.S., Latam) (jobs.ashbyhq.com)

Extend (YC W23) is hiring engineers to build LLM document processing (jobs.ashbyhq.com)

Parity (YC S24) is hiring founding engineers to build an AI SRE (in-person, SF) (ycombinator.com)

Freshpaint (YC S19) is hiring back end and front end engineers (Remote, US only)

MobileBoost (YC S21) Is Hiring a Founding Back End/Platform Engineer (Remote) (ycombinator.com)

Gym Class (YC W22) Is Hiring Character Animation Engineering Lead (ycombinator.com)

Foundry (YC F24) is hiring – Come build a world model for the web

Bild AI (YC W25) is hiring a founding engineer in SF (ycombinator.com)

Tenjin (YC S14) Is Hiring a Senior Ad Attribution Engineer (Ruby, Go) (ycombinator.com)

Onyx (YC W24) Is Hiring for ML Engineer (ycombinator.com)

Recover (YC W21) Is Hiring (ycombinator.com)

GiveCampus (YC S15) Is Hiring Sr engineers passionate about education (givecampus.breezy.hr)

Cekura (Formerly Vocera) (YC F24) Is Hiring (ycombinator.com)

Spark AI (YC W24) is hiring a full-stack engineer in San Francisco (ycombinator.com)

FurtherAI (YC W24) Is Hiring Software and AI Engineers (ycombinator.com)

Weave (YC W25) is hiring a founding engineer (ycombinator.com)

Infisical (YC W23) Is Hiring Design Engineer in San Francisco (ycombinator.com)

Ask HN: Was Mozilla Ever Independent?

Comments (5)