American venture capitalist
John Lilly
Occupation(s) Board Chair, Code for America [ 1] [ 2]
Lecturer in Management, Stanford University[ 3] Known for Mozilla 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
^ Fried, Ina. "Code for America names new CEO" . Axios . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ America, Code for. "Board members" . Code for America . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ a b "John O. Lilly" . Stanford Graduate School of Business . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ Rosoff, Matt. "A top investor nails why Microsoft is getting more respect in Silicon Valley these days" . Business Insider . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ Nguyen, Tuan (February 21, 2007). "Cisco Buys Reactivity Inc. for $135 Million" . Archived from the original on November 26, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2015 .
^ Oinas-Kukkonen, H. (2013). Humanizing the Web: Change and Social Innovation . Springer. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-137-30570-1 . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ a b Lawson, Stephen (11 May 2010). "Mozilla CEO John Lilly plans to step down" . Computerworld . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ Dignan, Larry. "Mozilla names Gary Kovacs as chief exec" . ZDNet . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ Lowensohn, Josh (28 March 2014). "Half of Mozilla's board reportedly resign over new CEO choice" . The Verge . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ a b c Carr, Austin (4 June 2012). "Investment Hunting With Greylock Partner, Instagram Backer John Lilly" . Fast Company . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ Mehta, Stephanie (22 April 2016). "A Top Silicon Valley V.C. Explains Why Slack Drives Him Crazy" . Vanity Fair . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ Ludwig, Sean (17 May 2013). "MessageMe nabs $10M from Greylock, Google, & others to take on WhatsApp" . VentureBeat . Retrieved 26 May 2020 .
^ 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