Looking Ahead

About two months ago, when many of you were probably at Whistler, Amazon appeared to have an outage. The eastern region seemed to go completely dark, and about half the internet (or half the internet I was connected to anyway) seemed to go down. It turned out to be a mistakenly published route by an ISP that caused traffic bound for Amazon’s east region to redirect to them.

You can look at that incident and say “we need more regulation”. But you can also look at that and see exactly the power and the promise of the internet. The fabric is distributed, power is at the edges, and creativity (or its darker twin, destruction) are within reach of everyone who understands enough of how it works to contribute. And that’s why the work Mozilla does is so important: Helping the people of the world realize the promise of the open web, and how to embrace that as a source of creativity while championing security and privacy.

When I left my position with MoCo back in April, I wasn’t sure what I’d do next. I wanted to focus on my writing for a while, and though I knew I would find another job at some point, I didn’t know how active I would remain in the Mozilla Community where I’ve been for much of the last decade. Since leaving, I’ve landed at a small company called Nuna that is working to improve health care for everyone by using data. And if you have heard anything about the US health care system, you have probably heard that it is one of the most broken systems in the developed world by nearly every measure. So, like Mozilla, it’s another role where what we build will create changes to make people’s lives better in meaningful, tangible ways.

I’m going to be focused on helping build the data analytics platform by doing what I enjoy: building automation and teams. But in order to really focus on the new space and on the problems before me, I am not going to be able to remain active in the Mozilla community. So sadly, I am relinquishing my duties as module peer, and I’m closing my Bugzilla account. It is bittersweet for certain, but it’s best to remain clearly focused on my goals, just as it is best for the Mozilla community to remain likewise focused on yours. The world needs us both to succeed.

My friends in this wonderful community have often felt more like family to me than friends. I wish you all the very best, and I know that many of us will endeavor to stay in touch as best we can. I look forward to celebrating your successes, and if ever I can be of service, you can find me here or on Twitter.

Keep on Rockin’ the Free Web

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