Blake Ross’ interest in software development began at an early age. He used America Online to create his first website when he was only 10. Some years later, Ross discovered Netscape, an open-source web browser that was fighting a losing battle against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Motivated by his mother’s frustrated experience with Internet Explorer, Ross began contributing to Netscape. When he was 16, Ross became an intern at Netscape Communications Corporation. While interning there, he became disenchanted with the browser they were having him work on. He and his colleague, Dave Hyatt, decided to make a new version of Netscape that would be more simple and user-friendly. They then created the browser, Mozilla Firefox. which was released on November 9th, 2004. Calling Firefox a huge success would be underselling it. In a month, Firefox had been downloaded 100 million times, and in a year, it became the most preferred browser in the whole world. After leaving Netscape, Ross would work on developing Parakey, a user interface designed to bridge the gap between the web and the desktop. In 2007 Facebook would purchase Parakey for a supposedly multi-million price. Ross then joined Facebook and was their Director of Product until he resigned in 2013 to pursue other interests.

Mozilla Firefox was a success because it was innovative in how easy-to-use it was. Ross recognized how complicated other web browsers were, and sought to fix the issue. Ross also knew that he could not succeed alone, which is why he worked for other companies and/or with partners. A key skill to being an entrepreneur is knowing what you are capable of and what you should assign others to do. Blake Ross benefitted enjoying his work as well. He didn’t make one of the most popular web browsers ever just for the money.