John Lilly
Occupation(s)Board Chair, Code for America[1][2]
Lecturer in Management, Stanford University[3]
Known forMozilla Corp. CEO (2008–2010)
Venture capitalism

John Lilly is a venture capitalist[4] and former CEO of Mozilla. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Open Source Applications Foundation and Code for America. He earned his B.S. in computer systems engineering and M.S. in computer science from Stanford University.[3]

Career

Reactivity

Lilly co-founded[5] and served the CTO for Reactivity,[6] a start-up focused on consulting on technically difficult websites and incubating new companies.[6] Cisco Systems bought Reactivity in 2007 for $135 million.[7]

Mozilla

Lilly was the chief executive officer of the Mozilla Corporation from 2008 to 2010.[8] The corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, coordinates development of open-source Mozilla Internet applications, including the Firefox web browser. Lilly, previously Mozilla's Chief Operating Officer, succeeded Mitchell Baker as CEO in January 2008.[9]

In May 2010, Lilly announced he would step down as CEO.[9] Lilly was succeeded by Gary Kovacs on November 8, 2010.[10] Lilly left Mozilla's board of directors in March 2014, reportedly over the appointment of Brendan Eich as CEO.[11]

Venture capital

Lilly joined the venture capital firm Greylock Partners as a partner in 2011. His investments include Instagram,[12] Dropbox,[12] Tumblr,[12] Quip,[13] and MessageMe.[14] Lilly left the firm in January 2019 to dedicate himself more to activism, explaining "it’s crystal clear that 2019 & 2020 are crucially important years — certainly the most important time in a generation, but maybe much longer than that."[15]

References

  1. ^ Fried, Ina. "Code for America names new CEO". Axios. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  2. ^ America, Code for. "Board members". Code for America. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  3. ^ a b "John O. Lilly". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  4. ^ Rosoff, Matt. "A top investor nails why Microsoft is getting more respect in Silicon Valley these days". Business Insider. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  5. ^ Sutton, Robert I. (2002). Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation. Simon and Schuster. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-7432-1212-0. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  6. ^ a b Sutton, Robert I. (2010). Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-55847-1.
  7. ^ Nguyen, Tuan (February 21, 2007). "Cisco Buys Reactivity Inc. for $135 Million". Archived from the original on November 26, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2015.
  8. ^ Oinas-Kukkonen, H. (2013). Humanizing the Web: Change and Social Innovation. Springer. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-137-30570-1. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  9. ^ a b Lawson, Stephen (11 May 2010). "Mozilla CEO John Lilly plans to step down". Computerworld. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  10. ^ Dignan, Larry. "Mozilla names Gary Kovacs as chief exec". ZDNet. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  11. ^ Lowensohn, Josh (28 March 2014). "Half of Mozilla's board reportedly resign over new CEO choice". The Verge. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  12. ^ a b c Carr, Austin (4 June 2012). "Investment Hunting With Greylock Partner, Instagram Backer John Lilly". Fast Company. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  13. ^ Mehta, Stephanie (22 April 2016). "A Top Silicon Valley V.C. Explains Why Slack Drives Him Crazy". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  14. ^ Ludwig, Sean (17 May 2013). "MessageMe nabs $10M from Greylock, Google, & others to take on WhatsApp". VentureBeat. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  15. ^ Schleifer, Theodore (18 January 2019). "The investment firm famous for its early bet on Facebook has been losing top talent". Vox. Retrieved 26 May 2020.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Lilly (computer scientist).
Preceded byMitchell Baker CEO of Mozilla Corporation 7 January 2008 – 2010 Succeeded byGary Kovacs


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