I worked at Mozilla from 2015 to 2020, leading teams in the development and delivery of the core underlying technology platform for Mozilla's products, as well as innovative research and engineering programs that helped pioneer the future course of the open Web.
From 2015 to 2017 I was Vice President of Platform Engineering, managing the organization responsible for Mozilla's web platform technologies including Gecko and Project Quantum and, for a while, also serving as Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer. In 2017 I moved into the Emerging Technologies (ET) group as a Technical Fellow, initially leading Mozilla's developer program including both MDN and Developer Relations. In 2019 ET restructured and I headed up the Advanced Development group, made up of the teams responsible for Rust, WebAssembly, Speech & Machine Learning, AV1 codec development, and Web of Things initiative.
Prior to my time at Mozilla I've held a variety of roles leading product engineering, marketing, sales enablement, applied research, and technology licensing businesses at Bell Laboratories, Sun Microsytems, and Nokia. I've always been motivated by building Internet and computing technology solutions for real-world problems that matter to people.
My history and Mozilla's are connected in a number of ways. While at Sun Microsystems in 1996 my team conceived & delivered the first browser and internet tool set for Solaris using Netscape Navigator, and I helped found and lead the Sun/Netscape alliance from 1999 - 2002. At Nokia I authored the company's web & browser platform strategy and worked to help get Internet technologies into Nokia products and accessories.
These days I advise companies and mentor startups. I spend a lot of my personal creative time participating in the Maker movement, building software and hardware in my home workshop and exploring the world of programmable, connected things. I'm also an enthusiastic participant in and advocate for the IndieWeb, a people-focused alternative to the "corporate web". You'll find my personal home page at https://www.disquisitioner.com.
I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and hold Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee.