We haven't failed him. While the old "may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" trope gets used here, it doesn't mean you need to protect people from the consequences of their speech.<p>Brendan Eich can donate to whatever causes he wishes, and rightfully so, but there is rightly no protection from the public opinion based consequences arising from those donations. Equally, justifications such as "meritocracy" imply that being a CEO is a very narrow thing - it isn't, it's a position of authority and leadership, and if you can't (near universally) inspire confidence in the people you're intended to lead, that is a problem with your ability to function as CEO.
Meh.<p>There is a selectively low bar on persecution these days. He wasn't being denied the right to marry, they right to make medical decisions for or visit a loved one in the hospital, the right to adopt. He wasn't even being denied the right to a decent living.<p>He was denied access to a particular leadership position. While there is a slippery slope to be found in denying leadership positions based on belief, there are also two sets of rights to consider. The rights of the (potential) leader, and the rights of the workers he leads. Given that the belief he expressed through his donation concerned the civil rights of other people and not himself, why should I expect that he will respect the rights of any LTBG workers in his employee?
This is sickening.<p>Denying gays the right to marriage is not a free speech issue, it's a human rights issue. Replace gay marriage with interracial marriage and see if the idea of "we failed you because we didn't support your right to believe that interracial marriage is wrong" still stands up.<p>Trying to equate this to a free speech issue is just another way of discriminating against gays. Eich actively supported the discrimination against gays and there's no way that he has the moral right to lead a company like Mozilla. I for one am glad that he was put through the wringer and hope anyone else that believes in any form of discrimination and wants to lead a company gets the same treatment or worse.<p>EDIT: someone rightfully pointed out I overstepped my description. I changed "Eich discriminated against gays" to "Eich actively supported the discrimination of gays"
If he'd been funding a campaign for a constitutional ban on interracial marriage, he'd never even have been considered for the role in the first place (and rightly so).<p>Certainly, he has the right to say, think and fund what he likes, but if you're funding an effort to remove peoples' rights, you shouldn't be too surprised if people are disinclined to let you have a job which places you in authority over a company full of people.
He just didn't have the right culture fit for Mozilla.<p>(Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere.)<p>Essentially, it's really hard to lead people who don't respect you.<p>We can all have a civil disagreement about whether vi or emacs is superior, or if Political Party X is better than Y. But when you specifically attack the fundamental rights of your employees and their friends / family, then refuse to apologise for it, you're simply not going to be a credible leader.<p>Here's the other thing - in capitalism, you have to listen to your customers. If the "Moral Majority" wants to boycott your shop/browser/TV show because your CEO isn't sufficiently deferential to their god - they can go for it.<p>If the business wants to succeed, it has decide whether it will be more profitable to capitulate or not.<p>In Mozilla's case, they have (belatedly) seen the way the world is turning. Good for them.
For goodness sake, when are people going to understand that freedom of expression doesn't (and shouldn't) mean freedom from criticism. This is not a difficult concept people.
I agree with Sullivan's take[1] posted yesterday. If this is the gay-rights movement today, a bunch of extremist Social Justice Warriors, I want no part of it.<p>Not only that, but Catlin's reaction to it[2] is also shameful: 'oops, we thought he would evolve like President Obama did, our bad. but hey, we're putting our apps back on the marketplace!'<p>[1] <a href="http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-eich/" rel="nofollow">http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-br...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-victory/" rel="nofollow">http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-victory/</a>
Very very intolerant and hypocritical of everybody that basically bullied him away. There's finally a self made rock star in a position of power and somehow people have played in such a way that he's the boogie man. Over a fricking PERSONAL point of view.<p>I can make many many analogies to other businesses and some religious institutions, but this would have happened <i>nowhere</i> but Mozilla.<p>Stop using #mozilla for your anti-gay/pro-gay/liberal/conservative/libertarian platforms. Read the manifesto: <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/</a>
When you find somebody holds an opinion you disagree with you have a choice of either ignoring them, pushing them away or engaging them in discussion (which requires a reciprocal action on their part).<p>It seems the latter option wasn't even considered, everybody just wanted rid.<p>That's:<p>a) Not very mature
b) Worse, a missed opportunity to convince somebody of an alternative view<p>Well done everybody, you've turned somebody you disagree with into an entrenched and victimised somebody you disagree with who hates you. <i>clap clap clap</i>
CEOs, like any other employee, are representatives of the company they're employed by.<p>Just as if I were to post racist comments on my [Generic Social Media], my employer is going to need to do something to protect the company, because as the article points out: people (clients, customers) are judgemental, critics of gay marriage and critics of Brendan Eich included.
Jesus, this is the epitome of naive techie blabbering. Does OP really think that the CEO position is based on "merit" alone? That football teams are all coached by former Heisman Winners? That all generals have Medals of Honor? It's not even worth debating Eich specifically with the OP; his view of the world is astonishingly naive.
Will we ever stop conflating <i>opinions</i> with <i>competency</i>, in general? A person can just as well be a full-blown racist or xenophobe and at the same time a very competent leader. The only thing you show when pushing someone down from a leadership position because of some of his opinions is that "that was not a real leadership position, we just needed a puppet good for PR".<p>Human beings are not things you can take "as whole". A person can be total asshole in one aspect and a great guy in another aspect. You need to see people as "bags of ideas that happen to coexist in a mind and body" and the concept of "individual" as mostly an illusion, and look for the bags with the most good pieces, even if they can have some poisoned beans in them. And it's the same thing for leaders. If you look for an "overall great human being with no great flaws in any aspects" you can only get: (a) a mediocre person that is not "too bad" in any way but also not exceptionally good in any way or (b) a highly skilled liar and manipulator, most likely a very advanced psychopath, that can perfectly hide all his flaws and appear "overall an awesome guy". Oh wait, I've just described 99% of the world's leaders...<p>Another thing you get by going this way is that you end up with the people really "calling the shots" staying in the shadows, leading through puppets they manipulate and being completely unaccountable.
Some CEOs have donated to a political campaign of questionable merit on one occasion in the past.<p>Some CEOs kill elephants for fun.<p>And there are many shades of gray in between.<p>I'm not sure exactly where the threshold for "This guy needs to get lost" is, but I'm pretty sure the cutoff is somewhere <i>between</i> the two cases I just alluded to, rather than to one side of both.<p>Sure, Mr. Eich could try to fire gay employees (if that's legal, which I doubt), but he could just as well help make Mozilla an even brighter beacon of free speech than it already is, indirectly helping the LGBT community and thereby atoning for whatever sins he might have once committed against it. What matters is that the "community" (or some subset of it) didn't even give him a chance to demonstrate, through actual decisions, which path he will choose and how he will try to strike a balance between his personal beliefs and the needs of the community. I guess we were too impatient -- or more likely, too lazy -- to wait for some actually relevant evidence upon which to base a solid opinion.<p>What's next? Boycott FOSS products whose authors are found to be religious? DDoS attacks on companies that donated to Romney's campaign? By the way, is anyone still using ReiserFS?
This is bullshit. I am not discriminating him. I am punishing him with the power I have (my freedom to not use the products of his company) to punish his discriminating point of view. The same way he has the right to use his money to help a discriminating law go ahead, I have the right not to use his products and criticize his opinions.
The blog posts, comments, and tweets aren't really what provided the direct pressure for him to resign.<p>Far more likely that corporate partners, donors, etc. called the remaining board members or anyone else of any influence and told them that the money would dry up if this problem didn't go away.<p>I find it interesting that the fact of his donation came up in 2012 when he was CTO of Mozilla (the organization he co-founded). This didn't become an issue in 2014 organically -- again I think it's far more likely that someone had it out for Eich, and saw their best opportunity to revive a two year old issue and get rid of him when he became CEO.
I'm not sorry. He can disagree with other people and make decisions about his own life, but once he gives money to a cause that is working to restrict the basic rights and freedoms of others he's crossed the line.<p>I'm not sorry one bit.
We failed him? How overwrought can you get?<p>He wasn't incarcerated, executed, sued, or tried for a crime. He lost his job. As we're all fond of implying here, there's no right to employment, let alone the right to be a CEO.<p>Don't hide behind "meritocracy" and "tolerance" to defend morally repugnant ideals. You demean those words and yourself. You reveal your lack of understanding of what an open and free society means when it comes to the more vulnerable, less privileged members of same.
In a way we did..<p>If we carry it to its logical conclusion that the Marriage License is free from religion than by that concept a Muslim living in the US should be able to Marry multiple wives and so should Mormons..
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Prop 8 pass? I mean, didn't the majority of California voters vote in favor of Prop 8? It was only struck down after by the courts.<p>Seems like there's a lot of people who should be forced to resign from their jobs over this. Not just one.
This article hits my two pet peeves.<p>Anyone who believes a person's rights should extend beyond the point at which they infringe on the rights of others is not worth listening to.<p>Also, please don't use the term 'meritocracy'. Ever. Are you referring to the idea of rubber stamping people for positions of power based on their parents ability to pay for for the most expensive university courses and degrees? No, I didn't think so.