Eich credits Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus. The story goes that around the turn of the century, AOL agreed to spin off the Mozilla Foundation, but only wanted to fund it with a "get lost package," according to the Chronicle.

Eich says that Kapor, himself a victim of the Microsoft hegemony, leaned on a friend, AOL exec Ted Leonsis, to get the Mozilla Foundation a better sendoff. Eventually AOL agreed to set up the foundation with $2 million. It was enough to keep Mozilla alive and thriving.

Now, Mozilla's browser Firefox owns around 16 percent market share and Mozilla is more profitable than its new CEO would like you to think about.

While many in the company may be sick of the man who really ran AOL (what, you thought it was the CEOs? Read any history of the 90s dot-coms and you'll see Ted was always the company's biggest swinging dick), he may be honest when he blogs that he's really really doing it to spend more time with his family. "In today's world of press spin," sez Ted, "if you mention stepping back from work load to focus on family, people think you got fired from your job."

So who's next? Well, a few weeks ago, I'd have said Jason Calacanis. But the AOL exec, who joined when the company bought his Weblogs Inc. blog network, is stuck at his current job overseeing Netscape.com. Alexa traffic stats suggest Calacanis's relaunch of the site this June didn't slow a two-year traffic plummet. Now an outside source says he could get booted from the company next year. So much for his plan to revolutionize AOL. Now who will take Ted's job?

Ted Leonsis to Retire from Active Management of AOL In 2007 [AOL press release]

• AOL's Netscape team explains its process of preventing users from gaming the site. Meanwhile, AOL's Weblogs, Inc. team games Netscape competitor Digg. (One Weblogs, Inc. writer tells me that Weblogs, Inc.'s internal mailing list is clogged with requests for Digg/Netscape/Reddit/Del.icio.us votes.) All's fair in love and war, right? [Netscape and Diggforlife]
• Palo Alto, the movie: in which four friends remember the hardships of growing up in the hundredth-highest per-capita-income city in America. [Pictured; Official site via Adam Hahn]
• Best summary of a tech-based musical ever: "I think that Google: The Musical wasn't really about Google. It was more about the zombies that attacked the main characters." [Google Blogoscoped]
• The country of Cameroon finds its true economic calling: making millions off exploiting the ".cm" domain name. [CNET]
• For those who are keeping track, Ted Leonsis creeps ever closer to achieving his entire list of life goals (presumably updated since he posted it in January). Noticably absent is "not sound kind of like a prick by posting already-achieved life goals." [Ted's Take]

AOL, the sickly siamese twin of Time Warner, announced it will fire 5,000 people by the year's end. Those cuts probably focus on the Access department, which announced yesterday that it will give AOL broadband access for free. (Veteran AOL exec Ted Leonsis doesn't mention the layoffs in his chipper forecast for the company.)

While AOL predicts losing more than half of its subscribers over the next three years, other departments are doing just fine. AOL's ad market is exploding, turning it into a powerhouse portal. Another business plan overhaul for AOL, another leg of the company's never-ending search for its own soul.

AOL to Cut Up to 5,000 Jobs As Part of Restructuring [WSJ]
Photo: At AOL, a Plan for a Clean Break [NYT]

But from all but Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, Curt didn't get so much as a "screw you." Not all of the non-responders are worth millions, but one suspects they're all better off than the average Central African farmer.

Decent People
Evan Williams (Blogger, Odeo)

People Who Would Rather Buy a Fourth Lexus Than Give a Dime to Keep African AIDS Babies From Going Tits Up
Chris Anderson (Wired)
Ted Leonsis (AOL)
Steve Scott Johnson (Ookles, Feedster)
Craig Newmark (Craigslist)
Craig Mundie (Microsoft)
Esther Dyson (I have no idea)
Joi Ito (goes to lots of Blogger conferences, other than that...visits diaper hookers in Kabukicho?)
Michael Arrington (Techcrunch)
Steve Wozniak (Apple)
Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media)
Kevin Kelly (Wired)
Jason Calacanis (Weblogsinc/AOL)
Nick Denton (Gawker)
James Hong (Hot or Not)
Max Levchin (Slide, Paypal)

The Blogswana Project [Official site]
Donation page [Blogswana Project]

Today's guest may be in the know, or they may do a great job of faking it. Your call. Here's the e-mail (edited for typos) from a pseudonymous tipster, "The Wall's Ear":

Ok, I've got to clear some things up.

3/8/06 - layoffs affecting the Netscape Audience business. There were three groups of people...

People that left on the 8th
People that stay (either were moved or were already in the Access org)
People that were asked to stay through June 30th (the transition period)

Transition period you ask? That would be the time that netscape.com will continue on in its current incarnation. What comes next(launching in late June-July with a built from scratch dev team)? The rumors are right on that one.

Calacanis is turning it into a clone of digg.com, it will be aimed at the general consumer, it will fail and take Calacanis with it. I kid, I kid.

As for these people being slated to go for a long time, well that's a different story. It goes back a couple of years and starts with Jeremy Liew. He managed to run what was a flagging but sustainable Netscape brand into crap.

After the jump, the rest of the story.

It started with his idea to turn the Netscape portal into a Flash application. This idea of course came after people were already building wonderfully useful "AJAX" applications. Everyone knew this would fail, but he was determined it was the future. Add to that the "fabulous" ideas he had for the browser *cough* IE engine *cough* and you have a complete failure.

So it's been some time coming in that a new business plan was inevitable, but not that "those people" were anything more than victims of a bad executive and buddies dragging buddies along with them for the ride (Liew and Miller and IAC).

So now Leonsis' new lapdog has a shot to do something with Netscape. I'm expecting an on-time launch that will end up running as an "experiment" for a couple of weeks before the old site gets turned back on with people saying they never meant for it to stay a digg clone, just a test.

Wow. Calacanis deserves a touch more faith — this is the man who Revolutionized Blogging, the man who Knows What's Up, the man who recently learned to spell his own name.

... netscape layoffs did take place, according to my sources, in mountain view & columbus, ohio locations

calcanis position in layoffs is timely but not related. those ppl have been slated to go for a long time. its relevant only in the sense that there will likely be some reorganization, & his name has surfaced to lead the department that oversees blogging on AOL, netscape or wherever.

also, calcanis seemed very excited about ted leonsis' blog, like its a testament to the relevance & power of the damn things. however, it is widely known throughout aol that the blog is ghostwritten by mary cheney, daughter of none other than our accident prone v.p.

Still running that Mary Cheney line through the "WTF" filter. Can anyone corroborate that the Second Daughter of the U.S. is faking it for AOL exec Ted Leonsis? Ted Leonsis says it's bullshit:

As anyone at AOl—or the fans of the Washington Capitals know—I read and answer all of my own email—I blog and write and think and get on my soapbox —all on my own—to say that someone else is doing my blog is disrespectful to our medium—to me and to my staff—-you have been misinformed—-my staff helped with the platform—we review what we will discuss and sometimes I get help in factchecking—but the thoughts and words are mine.

Earlier: Exclusive: Big layoffs at AOL in Calacanis takeover [Valleywag]

Ted Leonsis: 917,974
Jason Calacanis, personal AOL evangelist: 109,615
Nick Denton, Gawker Media dark lord: 64,107
Phil Torrone, MAKEbot co-developer: 62,426

Sadly, bots like SmarterChild (a general-purpose IM bot) and MAKEbot (the first popular RSS-over-IM tool) aren't measured by AIM Fight; I'm beginning to think they're the only match for Ted. Feel like challenging the title? Send an IM to "heyvalleywag".

AIM Fight [Ted's Take]
AIM Fight [AIMfight.com]