

A Personal Message [about  Brendan Eich’s donation to Prop 8] - vgnet
http://blog.mozilla.com/dmandelin/2012/04/10/a-personal-message/

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erikpukinskis
I don't understand how something being "personal opinion" or "political
belief" makes it beyond the purview of your professional life. I know a lot of
people think that their work is "just a job" and has nothing to do with
ethics, but it's different for me. My work and my ethics are tightly bound,
and it's extremely important that any organization I work for operates in a
way that's consistent with my ethics.

As such, if my CEO is funding a campaign to curtail human rights, then that
matters to me. My participation in an organization is based on a certain
amount of trust... trust that my co-workers are going to act on behalf of the
organization--on behalf of _me_ \--in a way that I can be proud of. I can't
monitor every one of my co-workers, so building trust is a necessity.

Brendan's funding of Prop 8 tells me that he is not, in his professional
duties, capable of extending to LGBTQ members of the Mozilla community the
respect that I think all people deserve. And therefore I could not have faith
in him as my CEO.

I realize that many people would have the exact opposite opinion, and I
respect that. We're all entitled to our individual political and ethical
views. But the notion that we should separate them from our professional life
strikes me as intensely wrong.

Edit: I want to add that were Brendan to engage the discussion of his
donation, to listen to the criticisms and dig into the issues, and take them
seriously, I absolutely _could_ regain trust in him as a CEO. But as it is,
with him writing the issue off as a non-issue, I could not.

~~~
Udo
I agree with your opinion that the ethical and moral background of a person
does transcend the barrier between personal and professional life. While I
share your disappointment, I feel this leads to a larger problem than any of
us would like to acknowledge. We're here (and Brendan Eich is here, by
extension) because we share a common interest in technology and startups. From
time to time it's necessary to remind ourselves that this is our only uniting
quality. Just because I'm a secular guy that doesn't mean this is a given as
far as any other member of the geek community is concerned. I'm probably not
the only one to be occasionally surprised and dismayed when a fellow HNer
casually expresses $insert_fundamentalist_traditional_value$. But it's worth
reminding oneself that we don't in fact have a shared moral value system here,
not even when it comes to basics.

I'm making this observation because I don't think the actual donation is the
central problem, it's Mr Eich's deeper seated belief system which some of us
find appalling. But this and many other belief systems like it are quite
common, it's just a facette that usually stays hidden during the normal flow
of geek-to-geek interaction.

I think the whole tech sector would just disintegrate if we started
compartmentalizing based on world views.

I remember when I was working at a startup, I somehow got into a discussion
with an employee who firmly believed that I (and in fact the majority of
people working there) would be going straight to hell to be tortured for all
eternity. Not only that, he admitted that he was convinced we all _deserved_
to go to hell and said the notion was filling him with a strange mixture of
joy and pity. The thing is: we all got along great. This guy was always super
nice to everyone, there was no way to tell from the outside. I decided then
and there to just accept this and move on. Apparently, it's possible to work
together (and even be friendly) even with the guys who are secretly wishing
you harm. It's sad and depressing, but it works.

------
vgnet
Here's Brendan's post on the subject:
<http://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/>

