# John Lilly

> John Lilly is a Venture Partner at Greylock Partners and former CEO of Mozilla Corporation, where he oversaw Firefox's growth from 7 million to 450+ million users. A Stanford-trained engineer turned VC, he has backed transformative companies including Dropbox, Figma, Instagram, and Discord, while staying rooted in civic technology as Board Chair of Code for America. He currently serves as a lecturer at Stanford GSB and Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School.

- **Role:** Venture Partner at Greylock Partners
- **Organizations:** Greylock Partners, Code for America, Figma, Duolingo, Nuro, Clockwise, Caffeine, VotingWorks, Stanford University, Harvard Business School
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering, Stanford University, M.S. in Computer Science (Human-Computer Interaction), Stanford University
- **Known for:** Grew Firefox user base from 7 million to 450+ million during tenure as Mozilla CEO, Co-founded Reactivity, sold to Cisco for ~$135 million in 2007, Led Greylock investments in Dropbox, Figma, Instagram, Tumblr, Discord, Roblox, and Quip

## Career timeline

- **1990s** — Senior Scientist at Apple research labs
- **1990s** — Executive team member at Trilogy Software
- **2000** — Co-founded Reactivity, an enterprise XML gateway security company
- **2005** — Joined Mozilla as VP of Business Development
- **2006** — Became COO of Mozilla
- **2007** — Reactivity acquired by Cisco Systems for ~$135 million
- **2008** — Appointed CEO of Mozilla Corporation
- **2010** — Stepped down as Mozilla CEO; Firefox user base at 450+ million
- **2011** — Joined Greylock Partners as Partner
- **2012** — Led Greylock investment in Instagram (acquired by Facebook for $1B)
- **2014** — Joined Figma board of directors
- **2016** — Quip acquired by Salesforce
- **2019** — Transitioned to Venture Partner role at Greylock
- **2021** — Made 10 independent investments including Descript, Iron Fish, Census
- **2024** — Invested in VotingWorks (civic tech)
- **2025** — Named Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School Entrepreneurial Management Unit

## Achievements

- Grew Firefox user base from 7 million to 450+ million during tenure as Mozilla CEO
- Co-founded Reactivity, sold to Cisco for ~$135 million in 2007
- Led Greylock investments in Dropbox, Figma, Instagram, Tumblr, Discord, Roblox, and Quip
- Instagram investment became one of the highest-return acquisitions in VC history
- Holds 7 U.S. patents as co-inventor
- Board Chair of Code for America
- Named Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School (2025-26)
- Lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Previously Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford's d.school

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Named Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School Entrepreneurial Management Unit for 2025-26 academic year
- **2025-01** — Standing for re-election to Duolingo board of directors for term through 2028 annual meeting
- **2024-12** — Made investment in VotingWorks, a civic technology company focused on election infrastructure
- **2024-01** — Continued active board service at Figma, Nuro, Clockwise, Caffeine, and Code for America

## Links

- Website: https://johnolilly.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlilly
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/johnolilly

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/john-lilly
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-04