Really unfortunate that this happened to someone as nice and competent as Eich. His leadership would have held amazing things for Mozilla, the open web, javascript, rust, all of it. Instead he got targetted by an intollerant lynch mob that felt it had to strong-arm someone with views they didn't agree with. Sure, you could say it's a human rights issue. But ask yourself, would you consider it reasonable for Christians to target some arbitrary CEO who donated some money to planned parenthood several years ago, since that person was violating the human rights of infant children? And then for that CEO to step down in shame for because their respect for human life was in question? Of course not, that would be silly.
So here's the part about this that deeply disturbs me.<p>It's reasonable to assume at this point that Mozilla's next CEO will have their political opinions thoroughly vetted, overtly or covertly. In fact, it's reasonable to assume this will become a higher priority at all tech companies. Who wants to be the next Mozilla, after all? You pretty much have to do this now.<p>And that's an awful place for us to be. It's going to go too far, because these things always do. Once you make something a corporate risk, corporations go too far in reducing it. So we're going to get the blandest, most milquetoast candidates possible. And it's going to hurt people on all sides of the political spectrum.<p>It's also going to make people with ambitions of CEOhood hold back from any political support of anything, liberal or conservative or whatever.<p>There's a definite chilling effect at work here. An internet mob has forced out a major company's CEO over a political issue.<p>Yes, for many it's more than just politics. But that's not my point. My point is that it's <i>also</i> a political issue, and that's the lesson that's corporations are going to take here. They aren't going to limit it to issues some people see as human rights issues, they're going to apply it to all political issues, because overcompensating is what large corporations do.<p>It's worrying, and ultimately a step in the wrong direction.
Baker has worked with Eich at mozilla for 15 years and says that she was unaware of Eich's views on gay marriage.
She says that it has given her cause for self-reflection about how she had not noticed.<p>Nor apparently had anyone else until they discovered his donation from 6 years ago.<p>Sounds like he was doing a good job of separating business and politics.
Two thoughts:<p>- Brendan Eich is a great guy and I suspect would have been a great CEO and done good things for the company.<p>- I fully respect the actions of Mozilla employees who did not want someone with Eich's opinions as their CEO. It's all very well to "respect the opinions of others" but when the opinion in question is that you should be treated as a second-class citizen, that you are not as good as other kinds of people, then that becomes very problematic if that opinion is being held by your superior. If that superior is in fact the CEO, someone who is the "face" of the company, provides leadership, and rallies the troops, then it becomes even worse.<p>I find both statements above to be true, despite the fact that they are at odds with one another. Humans are complicated.
Remember folks: Mozilla is a civil rights organization, not a technology company. They happen to operate in the technology space, but their stated purpose is to safeguard and advance civil rights, not sell technology. A potential CEO's history with regards to civil rights is absolutely relevant with respect to this organization. What Mozilla does and how Mozilla operates should not be viewed through the same lens that we would view a technology company such as Apple, Microsoft, or Oracle.
I love people's ability to have horrible beliefs a lot more than the (now legal) ability to marry my boyfriend, so this is unfortunate to hear. I've always admired Mozilla for what it does, a lot more than other companies that get painted as homophobic (Chick Fil A?), so this is too bad. I think he was fine where he was, and his opinions on people matter as much to me as I suspect my opinions matter to anyone else.
Cynically: Some degree of conformity to your group is required as a CEO, including on political issues. In the tech world, supporting SOPA is a killer, but also certain other social issues, including gay marriage. If you run a big popular chicken sandwich in the South, don't start donating to pro-choice (abortion) groups either.<p>The gay marriage issue seems to be the most socially poisonous out of all in Silicon Valley - I find the level of vitriol offputting. Would this apply to someone who was pro-2nd amendment, pro-life, or held other similarly minority views? Many people disagree on the civil rights of gun ownership or abortion, but it is not nearly as loud. Everyone paints social issues a black-white, right-wrong decision, and ignore that over half of Californians, whether their religion or personal beliefs dictated so, voted for Proposition 8. While you or I don't necessarily agree with them, we will interact with them thousands of times in our lives.<p>It goes both ways. Just let that sink in, and realize the role that human nature and tribalism plays in addition to the loftier goals of political ideals and tolerance.
> We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public.<p>Except for the CEO, it seems.<p>I don't think what he did is right -- it should be pretty obvious to everyone by now that history is going to look unfavourably at all of us for dragging our feet on the issue he made a bigoted stand on -- but it seems a peculiar thing to include in the blog post announcing that your CEO stepped down because of his stance on a civil rights issue.
Can I just be blunt? Eich has absolute freedom to say what he wants. He's free to campaign against same-sex marriage. He could campaign against interracial marriage, if he wanted to. Not a problem, and I'm deeply glad that this belief is deeply ingrained in US culture.<p>But the freedom to advocate any idea you want <i>does not</i> give an individual the right to be free of criticism from others.<p>The thing that has happened here is pretty simple:<p>- Eich was promoted to a highly visible community leadership position.<p>- Mozilla as a community organisation has a general policy of promoting diversity and equality in software development.<p>- Eich's personal views are not compatible with that position, and he was previously an active campaigner against some civil rights for LGBT people – a position which caused actual damage to members of the organisation he was CEO of, and others in the community it is a leader in.<p>- Eich failed to convincingly apologise, or explain and reassure the community that his views were acceptable.<p>- Members of the community and Mozilla who were directly affected by his actions, others who are their peers, and other people in the community in general, felt that Eich was, as a result, not a suitable candidate for such an important and visible position.<p>- Those people made their objections known, and Eich failed to control the controversy, eventually resigning.<p>I don't really know what else could be expected in this case. A bunch of people objected to his views (which is totally their right, considering those views were actively harmful to them), and he/Mozilla did not believe that his continued presence in the role would be effective.<p>Is the argument that we should completely ignore the personal views of people in important and visible leadership roles? That seems unrealistic, and would quickly fall down when presented in a slightly different light.<p>I'm deeply saddened by this whole affair — not because Eich has resigned, as much as I think he would have been an effective CEO, but because this discussion has to happen in the first place, and because prop 8 was even a thing.<p>AT least we'll be over all of this nonsense in a few years.
This is stupid. Progressiveness and open-mindedness go BOTH WAYS. You have to be tolerant of people with different perspectives, or you can't call yourself progressive.<p>I don't personally agree with the stance Eich took politically, but making him step down as CEO of a company he is more than fully qualified to run? Because you don't agree with his views on gay marriage? Are you kidding me? Ludicrous.<p>This is a huge step backward.
Fundamentally as a leader of an organisation your personal public activity is related to your job.<p>When the CEO of GoDaddy shot an elephant for fun or when the Chairman of the Co-Op was caught buying meth, these were personal activities but they nevertheless influenced how people perceived the companies they ran.<p>A CEO needs to command the respect of those they lead, they need to attract the best talent and they need to build relationships. In all of these they will get judged based on their character which covers both their personal and professional behaviour.<p>When the Mozilla CEO wants to meet a politician, they will take into account his personal political activity. When conferences (both tech but also political like the World Economic Forum) decide who to invite they'll consider the overall reputation of speakers, etc.<p>It would be perfectly legitimate for Mozilla to decide that it's willing to accept the consequences of Eich's personal activity, it was crazy for them to think it wouldn't have any consequences though.
I just read this, which Brendan Eich wrote last week, and proved insufficient to keep the job:<p><a href="https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/" rel="nofollow">https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/</a>
I am deeply honored and humbled by the CEO role. I’m also grateful for the messages of support. At the same time, I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla. I hope to lay those concerns to rest, first by making a set of commitments to you. More important, I want to lay them to rest by actions and results... I am committed to ensuring that Mozilla is, and will remain, a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion...
I have very mixed feelings about this.<p>I'm very glad to see people standing up to bigotry, but I'm not aware of any suggestions that Eich's feelings were affecting his job, or his employees.<p>Eich is certainly guilty of being an asshole, and his non-apology response did little to help matters, but I can't help but think that if we removed all the CEO's who are guilty of being assholes, the herd would be considerably thinned.
This discussion by Jonathan Rauch of the "Ender's Game" boycott seems particularly relevant to this situation: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFVRRP-J9mI#t=33m57s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFVRRP-J9mI#t=33m57s</a><p>tl;dw: The "agree with us, on pain of losing your job" tack may not be a good one for supporters of gay rights to take.
This is going to come back to bite us when the political winds start blowing the other way. I'm disappointed in how short sighted our community has proven itself.
Wow. So instead of directly repudiating his previous actions, he chooses to <i>step down</i>?<p>This personally proves to me that he's both a bigot and unfit to be a CEO. If he'd have just directly apologized for the donation, we wouldn't be here having this discussion today.
Censor thyself!<p>For your expression of opinion may some day be used to provoke the wrath of an angry mob...<p>Anonymity helps somewhat. If instead of donating $1000 and putting his name on a public list he'd wait a few years and donate 1000 BTC to the same cause from an undisclosed address, Mozilla would have been forced to find something else to use against him in order to remove him from that position. Maybe just ask nicely instead of pulling these shenanigans.<p>Censor thyself. This is the world we're living in. It's just sound advice to help keep you safe. Not just from a state or a church, but from the everyday he and she, they and them.
Well done the progressive community of bullies. The awful gay hater stepped down. We can all rejoice now.<p>The witch-hunt that unfolded was unfortunate to witness. People overheard "against gay marriage" and this lit up the fire. Few cared to actually look into the story. One donation was enough to paint him as an ardent homophobic. Despite the impeccable track record of 15 years in Mozilla (including 8 years as CTO).<p>I respect this person, despite his non-respectable belief in gay marriage.
While I disagree with his privately held position on marriage, I wouldn't necessarily imagine that his private views would translate into his public position. Obviously he has been an amazing and competent thought leader in this industry and somehow his personal views haven't seemed to surface in the past. And we can't even speak about his thought process behind his financial support. He didn't use company funds for it. I'm inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt that they can make competent, unbiased and professional decisions, not based on their privately held beliefs. I don't think he would have made it this far if he was just out hating on every homosexual he came across. Let's extend the same professional consideration to people that we ask for ourselves.
Putting aside moral arguments for a moment, if Eich didn't voluntarily step down Mozilla may be in a bit of a fix, as per California Labor Code - Section 1101:<p>>No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy:<p>>(a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office.<p>>(b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of employees.<p>>- See more at: <a href="http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/LAB/1/d2/3/5/s1101#sthash.uT6Lmptj.dpuf" rel="nofollow">http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/LAB/1/d2/3/5/s1101#sthash...</a>
I'm just going to say it. I think this is really great news. I clapped. Eich was a totally inappropriate choice. I'm happy and no longer disgusted by the thought of using Firefox.<p>He belongs in a little room somewhere contributing to languages, where his antisocial beliefs can be attributed to understandable engineering-personality dysfunction!
This wasn't going to end any other way. If his positions on gay marriage could be contained and isolated from the business then it wouldn't be an issue. Once OKCupid stopped serving those using Firefox, it was that much more clear that either he would have to concede on his political beliefs or that he would be removed.
He donated some money to support his believes. By doing so, he did not do anything bad to anyone. If you want to have a civil discussion on any topic, boths sides should be able to express their views, otherwise this is unfair.
He stepped down at the board's invitation. AKA He was fired. (1)<p>They can promulgate the idea that this was a mutual decision, but at the end of the day, anyone who knows Brendan knows he would never step down voluntarily.<p>Brendan's defining traits are his obstinacy and his ego about technology. Imagine saying only the language that YOU invented can be used for the web.<p>Oh and it's single threaded only, (gee that's the future!) and oh that 3D technology that Microsoft has had working since the early 90s still (WebGL in 2014) doesn't work for anything non-trivial.<p>Mozilla and Brendan Eich parting ways permanently is the best thing that could ever happen to Mozilla. (2)<p>(1) This is a fact.
(2) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5226309" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5226309</a>
What's the next civil right? Health care! It's only a matter of time before someone is berated and chastised into resigning from a top post because he/she doesn't believe that society should pay for their health care. After that?
I like to think of this issue in the most specific terms possible, rather than the most sweeping and abstract.<p>If, for just a moment, you can set aside the bluster, it's just one guy named Brendan having a chance to evaluate whether it was really worth it to him to donate $1k to prop 8.
A letter I sent to Brendan:
<a href="http://www.arcaner.com/2014/04/03/thank-you-letter-to-brendan-eich/" rel="nofollow">http://www.arcaner.com/2014/04/03/thank-you-letter-to-brenda...</a>