
Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO - stellar678
https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/04/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/
======
pvnick
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.

~~~
stormbrew
> 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

You do realize this kind of thing actually happens, right? The right wing of
american politics is an avid user of and believer in boycotts.

Personally, I have no issue with this. No company is entitled to a person's
money, and if they make their public face about politics they accept the
consequences, both good and bad, of doing that. And it really is worth noting
that there are often positive consequences of doing it as well. Even for
causes I disagree with. Chick-Fil-A probably came out a bit ahead, if
anything, since their presence was stronger in markets that supported them.

Likewise, Disney openly supporting gay rights through Gay Days at Disneyland
and making sure their insurance supports gay employees' families have had both
positive and negative impacts.

This faux-freedom argument, where people aren't entitled to decide how their
own money is spent but the richest and most powerful are entitled to do
whatever they want with theirs without any fear of consequence is just a
ridiculous double standard.

~~~
jiojk542
"The right wing of american politics is an avid user of and believer in
boycotts."

Which companies have they boycotted? The recent organized calls for boycotts
include Chick-Fil-A, Mozilla, Walmart, McDonald's, etc. I haven't seen the
right calling for a boycott of companies that supported gay marriage
initiatives. Seems like the left is more into boycotts than the right.

~~~
jaibot
There is an ongoing conservative boycott of the Girl Scouts of America:
[http://cookiecott.com/](http://cookiecott.com/)

~~~
tgdfhgfh
and in response...

[http://monsantoboycott.com/](http://monsantoboycott.com/)

------
waterlesscloud
So here's the part about this that deeply disturbs me.

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.

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.

It's also going to make people with ambitions of CEOhood hold back from any
political support of anything, liberal or conservative or whatever.

There's a definite chilling effect at work here. An internet mob has forced
out a major company's CEO over a political issue.

Yes, for many it's more than just politics. But that's not my point. My point
is that it's _also_ 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.

It's worrying, and ultimately a step in the wrong direction.

~~~
danielharan
Right. Bigots will have to stay in the closet now. Sounds terrible.

~~~
muyuu
"Everybody who doesn't agree with me is a bigot and should be persecuted and
ostracised." Who's the bigot?

I didn't expect I'd meet McCarthyism so close and personal.

~~~
scintill76
I think this is a good nutshell. Apparently it's not bigotry if you're hating
people for not agreeing with the liberal cause _du jour_.

What would be an OK middle ground? Maybe this isn't a good case, because one
man's "making Eich pay for his offensive beliefs" is another man's "keeping
the Mozilla image palatable".

------
barking
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.

Nor apparently had anyone else until they discovered his donation from 6 years
ago.

Sounds like he was doing a good job of separating business and politics.

------
ender7
Two thoughts:

\- Brendan Eich is a great guy and I suspect would have been a great CEO and
done good things for the company.

\- 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.

I find both statements above to be true, despite the fact that they are at
odds with one another. Humans are complicated.

~~~
jaibot
These two statements don't seem contradictory; Real life things can be
complicated.

------
zemo
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.

~~~
sosuke
I'll be honest, I didn't know that at all, and I might look to them less as an
example of technology advancement. Why work on programming languages (Rust),
running Unreal in the browser, or web standards, if it isn't your goal to
advance technology?

~~~
zemo
technology is neither good nor bad; it's an ongoing process of evolution. It
is also a force of power. It is necessary to ensure the safety and liberty of
the people that no single monopoly over these technologies exist.

now, let's say some new area of technology emerges. If the only entities
capable of wielding that technology are for-profit corporations, the people
may find themselves unable to defend themselves against being subject to this
technology. And so, in order to maintain the safety of the people, the people
must always be abreast of the latest technologies.

They're no less an example of technology advancement because they can be
viewed as a civil rights organization. They're at the forefront of
technological civil rights. I merely posit that they are not a technology
company because I would define a technology company as a company that exists
to sell technology for profit. Mozilla does not exist for this purpose:
Mozilla exists to safeguard the rights of the many, and they do so by staying
at the forefront of technological advancement with regards to The Internet.

~~~
kybernetikos
And this is part of why I found this whole fiasco so sad. As far as I'm
concerned Mozilla is one of the very few technology companies I trust, and
they have an enormously important role in safeguarding many of our rights in
practice.

I think that this whole affair has deeply harmed them and we need them strong.

------
Einstalbert
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.

~~~
karlshea
I'm also gay and agree completely. The whole GLAAD contingent can be a little
too self-involved a lot of the time.

~~~
hkphooey
Could you please tell us more about GLAAD and the landscape of gay politics?
What are the different groups and what are the major issues they (dis)agree
on?

What would they think of a comment like this, from a prominent British gay
critic/writer ?

 _" Most of us... are content with civil partnerships and have not pleaded for
gay marriage. But every minority has within it a core of single-issue
politicians and protesters who are never satisfied and always ask for more,
and homosexuals, both male and female, are no exception."_

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10729717/Brian-
Sewe...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10729717/Brian-Sewell-Why-I-
will-never-be-converted-to-gay-marriage.html)

~~~
karlshea
It's really no different than any other special interest group.

GLAAD has had lots of success in the past and done a lot of good, but now I
feel like they are trying to find things to be outraged about, which has
become tiring to hear about. When you're going after Dan Savage and Alec
Baldwin for "saying the wrong things" when they are clearly LGBT allies I
think it's time to reevaluate what's really important. Reading the one "gay
news" site I follow sometimes feels like I've stepped into the Women and Women
First sketches on Portlandia.

I don't really see big divisions other than with the GOProud and the Log Cabin
Republicans sorts. Most of gay politics seems to be centered on the civil
rights issues, otherwise gay people span the political spectrum like any other
group. Obviously they lean more towards the Democrats, but I know a fair
number of gay people that are Republican.

As far as civil partnerships go, my impression (and also my opinion) is that
most of us think that while it might be a step in the right direction, it's
not really an acceptable solution at least in the US. There are a lot of
rights civil marriage brings that civil partnerships don't.

I do personally think that if the federal government decided to just not
recognize marriages as anything other than a religious ceremony and searched-
and-replaced "marriage" with "civil union" in all the laws I would be fine
with that.

------
yypark
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.

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.

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.

~~~
kenjackson
The thing that makes civil rights a big deal is that it affects people.

If you are against gay marriage or interracial marriage, that's a statement
about how you feel about people. Gun control is a lot less about how you feel
about people.

I think for me, and many others, gay marriage seems like such an obvious thing
that I really question the ethics of one who opposes it. There is probably no
other major issue in the US that I think is as obvious -- not immigration,
abortion, climate change, gun control, taxes, health care, Russia, torture,
etc...

~~~
yypark
Let's take affirmative action as a civil right - it's also an issue that will
affect a lot of organizations: Some people consider opposing affirmative
action as racist and anti-minority, and such a person unfit to be a CEO.
Meanwhile others see affirmative action itself as racist (see Ward Connerly,
from California Proposition 209) and sometimes discriminating against
minorities too. This fundamentally leads to a similar clash - so who's right
here on what the civil right is (e.g. anti-racism)?

Some will say that affirmative action is not an obvious thing you'd question
the ethics of a person for. But oppose or support that sort of initiative and
you'll be called a racist, sexist, etc. by at least one group, based on how
you feel about certain groups of people.

~~~
kenjackson
Affirmative action is not a civil right. Equality is. Affirmative action is a
method to tip the scales to achieve a goal, and it may or may not be
effective. It's not the same as gay marriage. Not even close, IMHO -- and I'm
a pretty big advocate of affirmative action in the US.

Interracial marriage is probably the closest "recent" legislation I could
think of.

------
georgespencer
> 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.

Except for the CEO, it seems.

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.

~~~
__abc
To be clear, what he did wasn't wrong either. You have a different opinion,
and society as a whole is shifting to a different opinion, but that doesn't
make his actions wrong.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Certainly he's no more wrong than any racist in the fifties or sixties, and we
all know how not-wrong those folks were.

------
matthewmacleod
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.

But the freedom to advocate any idea you want _does not_ give an individual
the right to be free of criticism from others.

The thing that has happened here is pretty simple:

\- Eich was promoted to a highly visible community leadership position.

\- Mozilla as a community organisation has a general policy of promoting
diversity and equality in software development.

\- 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.

\- Eich failed to convincingly apologise, or explain and reassure the
community that his views were acceptable.

\- 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.

\- Those people made their objections known, and Eich failed to control the
controversy, eventually resigning.

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.

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.

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.

AT least we'll be over all of this nonsense in a few years.

~~~
scintill76
> a position which caused actual damage

[citation needed]. Also, he supported a cause that the majority of the voters
did. How can you prove that withholding his $1k or whatever, or even him
advocating for the opposite position, would have changed the outcome of the
vote, thus averting "actual damage" to people?

Sorry if this is overly snarky, nitpicky, emotionally charged. I guess every
comment in these threads is, pretty much.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I can almost guarantee the opposite, if you want. If he'd not got involved at
all, nothing would have changed.

That's really not the point is it, though? You can't say "Hey, this guy was
campaigning for policies that objectively harm a group of people. But we can
ignore that, because it wouldn't make a difference if we wasn't involved." If
you did, there would be almost no personal moral responsibility for any action
you took, subject to the condition that the outcome wasn't really altered by
your participation.

To take it to an absurd extreme, it'd be a bit like saying "Okay, he was a KKK
member, but he never actually beat anybody to death, and the KKK would still
have existed, so it's okay."

So, the views he held and the campaign he actively helped caused objective
damage to people. The rights and wrongs of that are irrelevant; the point is,
it's ludicrous to claim that those people who were harmed should shut up and
respect his "right to free speech" by way of not objecting to his appointment.

~~~
scintill76
You're right, the "personal responsibility" argument was weak. I guess my
point is, one guy is being bullied for having an opinion that the majority (of
Californians who turned out for the vote, at least) had. He was just unlucky
enough to be required by law to leave a paper trail, and has enough integrity
to not back down from his beliefs under political pressure. I'm not saying
"might makes right", but that this is still not commonly seen as equivalent to
human rights[3]; that opposing gay marriage should not be equated with "hating
gays"; and that by all appearances this political opinion had no affect on his
treatment of people in his professional life.

You still haven't shown how this position caused damage. I do think it would
be fairly easy to quantify in, say, lost tax benefits, but I'd just prefer
that to be actually stated so everyone knows what's actually at stake, instead
of using vague, emotional language like "harm, damage, wrong". It's not honest
to pin all the discrimination and hate that gays experience, on just being
denied marriage, which I feel is what's implied by being vague.

I feel like you've kind of Godwin'd this discussion by invoking the KKK. I
really don't think you can compare terrorizing and killing people for the
color of their skin or their religion, to voicing your opinion, as a part of
society, on how a civil contract should be defined. It's easy to equate "KKK =
pure evil" in today's age. Part of the reason I invoked the majority who
supported Prop 8, is that, at least at that time, gay marriage wasn't such a
settled issue to most people (in California, in 2008.) If you reject that
relativist argument, I understand; but any comparison of lynching and
legislating seems relativist too.

I don't think anyone is saying LGBT people should 'shut up and respect his
"right to free speech"'. To be honest, I can't blame them for protesting. You
had some good points about Mozilla's image and how this whole thing was sort
of poorly handled. I guess what I and others are troubled by, is how many
other people, out of fear or mob mentality, are jumping on the bandwagon, and
what this means for the careers of anyone who ever wants to make any political
statement. There are a few employees who are supporters of LGBT rights who did
not object.[1][2] I hope for the sake of their future careers, that the taint
of supporting Prop 8 isn't transitive! Maybe this thing is a win for LGBT, but
more in a "opponents will shut up to avoid being torn apart by vocal
supporters" way than "the majority of the people are happily supporting them."

At the risk of sounding like the slippery slope fallacy, how far does this
kind of logic carry? Should women employees start calling for resignations of
anyone who has donated to a Republican, because they oppose contraception or
whatever? It sounds insane, but now that we've opened this door, why not?

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/jason_duell/status/449265719474008064](https://twitter.com/jason_duell/status/449265719474008064)

[2]:
[https://twitter.com/zbraniecki/status/449250865820348416](https://twitter.com/zbraniecki/status/449250865820348416)

[3]: One way to illustrate what I mean, is that it would be acceptable to many
people if he took no position on it. On the other hand, it would be considered
racist to most people to take no position on, say, "Are whites superior to
blacks?"

------
CrazedGeek
The previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7525198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7525198)

~~~
orik
Anyone willing to comment on why the previous discussion got sunk and a new
one was created?

Safe to assume this post will be sunk also?

~~~
drhayes9
Probably the comment-to-upvote-ratio flamewar detector. I believe that once a
story gets more comments than it has upvotes its ranking gets dropped.

~~~
orik
Oh really? That's curious. I wonder why an identical URL was still allowed to
be posted after such a detector has gone off.

------
m52go
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.

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.

This is a huge step backward.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
So, should people have been tolerant of bigoted Southerners who supported Jim
Crow? Should civil rights leaders have been tolerant of their views?

~~~
__abc
Jim Crow and freedom of speech are two different things.

I personally am ALL FOR equality independent of race, religion, or sexual
orientation. I don't care what you do with your life.

I do believe people should be equal, and laws against that should be
abolished, but that's my opinion. That's why we have voting and elected
officials.

More importantly, democracy is also about being allowed to place dollars and
votes in what YOU believe in independent of the current "accepted norms". It's
not WRONG for someone to vote against equality, that's their right .... at
least in this country.

~~~
gress
Nobody has suppressed Eich's freedom of speech.

------
ig1
Fundamentally as a leader of an organisation your personal public activity is
related to your job.

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.

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.

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.

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.

------
k-mcgrady
Over 500 upvotes in 2 hours and the other discussion has disappeared from the
front page. Is it getting flagged off or has it been removed by a mod?

~~~
Uehreka
If a post has more comments than upvotes, it gets penalized for being flame
bait.

~~~
phillmv
Which is a hateful policy, in my mind. It in effect says "controversial things
are not worth talking about".

~~~
forgottenpass
_Which is a hateful policy, in my mind. It in effect says "controversial
things are not worth talking about"._

Hacker News is owned by a venture fund. It's not for talking, the talking is
just a thing they have to allow to keep people coming back here. I'll leave
the task of discerning the obvious goals of YC to run an off-brand subreddit
to the reader.

------
cft
Selecting CEOs based on ideological basis has been tried in the Soviet Union.
It has not resulted in a very competitive economy.

~~~
ubercore
What? Please elaborate so I can argue with you.

~~~
haiduc
You could start by reading the tremendous life of Lysenko.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko)

You will see how he used politics to expend his influence on all the soviet
agriculture: research, agronomy, industrial production. Not only that lead to
a massive agricultural failure but as said Sakharov he was also "responsible
[...] for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine
scientists".

------
declan
I just read this, which Brendan Eich wrote last week, and proved insufficient
to keep the job:

[https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-
mozilla/](https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/) 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...

------
iMark
I have very mixed feelings about this.

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.

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.

------
vsviridov
Thanks, Internet, for making it impossible for people to make any mistakes
ever.

~~~
mindstab
Did he ever say it was a mistake, did he ever apologize for it? no. he
continually defended his right to do it and believe what he believes. That's
about as far from a mistake as you can get.

~~~
lcnmrn
What's wrong to believe in something? Isn't a human right to have your own
beliefs and opinions?

~~~
Karunamon
"Believing" in something and contributing money to that something are wildly
different things.

~~~
lcnmrn
Private funded "churches" are a common thing all over the world. Was there
ever been a problem with this? No.

~~~
Karunamon
Not what I mean. Thinking ill of people and actually contributing resources to
see those people oppressed are not even in the same universe morally.

------
AndrewBissell
This discussion by Jonathan Rauch of the "Ender's Game" boycott seems
particularly relevant to this situation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFVRRP-J9mI#t=33m57s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFVRRP-J9mI#t=33m57s)

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.

------
trothoun
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.

~~~
ganeumann
No it won't. That doesn't even make any sense.

~~~
scintill76
Maybe it doesn't make sense for there to be one "other way" for the winds to
blow. But I think it's a fair point, that not standing up for free speech,
could come back to bite us when one day our speech is an unpopular one and the
internet hordes are screaming for our heads.

Of course there are the old debates about whether money is speech, and lots of
people around here that don't think this speech deserves to be protected.

If you want a future as any sort of public figure, I guess you'd best not take
any stand at all on any issue. At least that will work until the crowd decides
that inaction is just as distasteful as taking an action they disagree with.

~~~
marshray
... and what does it mean for our organizations that we select for leadership
only from those who have never held a now-controversial opinion?

~~~
scintill76
That they are led by either: above-average forward thinkers who always form
opinions on the "correct side of history", liars who cover the tracks of
having incorrect opinions, spineless people who never take stands on issues,
or thoughtless people who can't be bothered to form opinions on issues. Well,
at least the first one is a positive attribute.

------
Karunamon
Wow. So instead of directly repudiating his previous actions, he chooses to
_step down_?

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.

------
bluefox
Censor thyself!

For your expression of opinion may some day be used to provoke the wrath of an
angry mob...

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.

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.

~~~
jrockway
I think he got what he wanted. He was the CEO of a tech company in San
Francisco. If he's the kind of person that is willing to spend his own money
to lobby for decreased human rights for a certain group of people that widely
exists in his organization and community, he probably picked the wrong job.

A lot of people are saying, "he made one mistake, and now he's paying too high
a price." Let me ask you: have you ever mistakenly donated $1000 to anyone?
Didn't think so.

~~~
bluefox
Whatever his opinion is, that is irrelevant to my post.

Pretty sure he didn't ask for an angry mob. I'm betting his life will be much
harder now. His mistake, according to my post, was to express his opinion in
public.

The moral of this story is that, for the well-being of oneself, all opinions
should be kept private. That is the way things are.

A risky alternative to keeping them to oneself is to express them
"anonymously".

------
znowi
Well done the progressive community of bullies. The awful gay hater stepped
down. We can all rejoice now.

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).

I respect this person, despite his non-respectable belief in gay marriage.

------
xacaxulu
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.

------
hellbanTHIS
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:

>No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy:

>(a) Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in
politics or from becoming candidates for public office.

>(b) Controlling or directing, or tending to control or direct the political
activities or affiliations of employees.

>\- See more at:
[http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/LAB/1/d2/3/5/s1101#sthash...](http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/LAB/1/d2/3/5/s1101#sthash.uT6Lmptj.dpuf)

------
gargarplex
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.

He belongs in a little room somewhere contributing to languages, where his
antisocial beliefs can be attributed to understandable engineering-personality
dysfunction!

~~~
agapos
"and no longer disgusted by the thought of using Firefox"

You DO know that gays also have contributed to it too, don't you? So, which
one will it be? Support something that was also supported by gays, or boycott
something that was supported by anti-gays?

~~~
gargarplex
the role of the CEO is that the buck stops with them. they are not only a
figurehead but ultimately responsible for everything at the company. way
different

------
austinhutch
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.

------
a-nikolaev
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.

------
thankgoodness
He stepped down at the board's invitation. AKA He was fired. (1)

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.

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.

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.

Mozilla and Brendan Eich parting ways permanently is the best thing that could
ever happen to Mozilla. (2)

(1) This is a fact. (2)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5226309](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5226309)

------
azth
Sad that the events lead up to this.

------
cpher
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?

------
unk
That escalated quickly.

------
benched
I like to think of this issue in the most specific terms possible, rather than
the most sweeping and abstract.

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.

------
happyscrappy
Yes, the PC crowd won but do we have to pollute HN with endless stories about
it?

------
arcaner
A letter I sent to Brendan: [http://www.arcaner.com/2014/04/03/thank-you-
letter-to-brenda...](http://www.arcaner.com/2014/04/03/thank-you-letter-to-
brendan-eich/)

