IEEE Spectrum: The Firefox Kid

“Blake Ross is nervous. It’s a muggy May day in New York City,
and the 20-year-old has to rent a tux for a big ­soiree where
he’ll be hobnobbing with celebrities at one of his first‑ever
black-tie events–a dinner for Time magazine’s 100 most influential
people of the year. And he’s not very practiced with bow ties. ‘I
never made it to my prom,’ says Ross, who has thick eyebrows and
pronounced ears, making him look like a young Franz Kafka.

“No wonder he projects such intensity: Ross has been busy. While
still a teenager, this self-taught coder cofounded the Mozilla
Firefox project, a spin-off of Netscape’s Mozilla Web browser,
sparking a global phenomenon…”

Complete
Story