The company’s chairman and former CEO explains the power of the participatory, open-source model of collaboration.
Lenny T. Mendonca and Robert Sutton
January 2008
As companies reach beyond their boundaries to find and develop ideas, they are exploring new models to manage innovation. In projects that tap external talent, questions quickly arise about process management, intellectual-property rights, and the right to make decisions. Some executives have been at this game longer than others. Mitchell Baker, chairman and former chief executive officer of Mozilla Corporation, has devoted the past ten years to leading an effort that relies extensively on people outside her company—not just for creative ideas, but also to develop products and make decisions. The result: Mozilla’s Firefox browser, with 150 million users, has become a rival of Microsoft’s market-leading Internet Explorer.
Vital statistics
Born in 1957, in California
Married, with 1 child
Education
Graduated in 1979 with BA in Asian studies from University of California, Berkeley
Received law degree in 1987 from Boalt Hall, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley
Career highlights
Mozilla Corporation
* Chairman (2008–)
* Chief executive officer (2005–2008)
Mozilla Foundation (2003–present)
* Director
AOL
* General manager (“chief lizard wrangler”) of Mozilla project (1999–2001)
* Netscape: Associate general counsel (1994–1999)
Fast facts
Speaks conversational Mandarin
Is a skilled flying trapeze artist
As Firefox flourished, the process that created it became a model for participatory, open-source collaboration. Baker’s role, central from the beginning, has taken many twists and turns. Ten years ago, she was a software lawyer at Netscape Communications—which developed the original commercial Web browser—when the company decided to release its product code to the public. Baker’s interest in defining and managing the project quickly earned her a place as one of its leaders. She continued to guide the project after Netscape was acquired by AOL, led the subsequent spin-off (to the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation) to develop the next-generation Firefox browser, and presided over Firefox’s impressive growth. In her role as “chief lizard wrangler,”1 she balanced and blended Mozilla’s commercial needs with the motives and efforts of an army of volunteers who develop the code and distribute the browser. Over the years, Baker has helped define the legal and functional model that allows an open-source community and a corporation to share responsibility for product development while managing the project and maintaining the organization’s momentum—not to mention its financial viability.
Today, Mozilla and Firefox are successful on several levels. Having recaptured market share lost to Internet Explorer, Firefox now holds 15 percent of the browser market in the United States and a higher share elsewhere. In 2006, the company’s revenue-sharing arrangement with Google for searches that originate in Firefox delivered revenues three times greater than Mozilla’s expenses,2 an impressive rate of return. Finally, the organization’s open-source development model is a visible and well-tested experiment in managing innovation beyond corporate borders. To learn more about that model, McKinsey director Lenny Mendonca and Robert Sutton, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, met with Baker in her Mountain View office before her change in roles.
