I disagree with Brendan Eich on same-sex marriage. And I'm not neutral or ambivalent on the subject; I wholeheartedly approve of the practice. But I disapprove of the way Eich was treated for his heresy. I think that he is a fine man and a great technologist and Firefox is a poorer product due to his excommunication.
So for me it isn't time to give Firefox another try. It's time to keep using Eich's far more innovative new browser, Brave.
He was the CEO. How are Mozilla employees supposed to believe he is going to look out for them when he literally spent money to advance a cause that was harmful to some of his employees and in no way beneficial to anyone. It wasn't like he was just some dude that didn't have people management responsibilities and kept his mouth shut. The decisions he made would impact lots of peoples lives. Mozilla employees were absolutely right to demand more from someone with that power.
He did keep his mouth shut about it. Nobody at the company claims that he made any mention of his support for Prop 8. He was outed for it. And interviews with several of his openly gay employees revealed nothing but his support and empathy for them. Yes, he could have been more supportive by opposing Prop 8. He is no saint in my book. But neither is he a monster that must be removed. He's a complex person, like pretty much everyone else I've ever worked with, and it's wrong to other him for one unfortunate but not necessarily malicious opinion.
He wasn't outed - his donation was public. Its not like some secret conversation was recorded and then reported out of context. He didn't accidentally donate $1,000 to oppose same sex marriage. Once called out on it, he didn't apologize or drop his support of Prop 8.
He made a decision and he stuck with it. And Mozilla employees also made a decision. His decision was to oppose their right to be married. Their decision was to oppose his privilege to be their CEO.
I think that is wrong too. Anonymous speech is important, and therefore so is anonymous support for speech. That was a lot more clear to LGBT folks before their opinions gained cultural ascendancy, when they benefited from anonymity when expressing their previously heterodox opinions. It helped them win. And there is much more winning to be done for other good causes that are still taboo.
Anonymous speech is super important. Even terrible anonymous speech. But this wasn't anonymous speech. Maybe it was speech he hoped no one would find. But, he made the conscious decision to speak in a public forum by donating money to a cause he supported. Then, when called out on it, he made the conscious decision to publicly re-affirm his support for that opinion.
I won't argue about donation disclosure policies. Maybe donations should be public, maybe they shouldn't - I dunno. But, even if they should be private, they weren't and I don't believe he should get a pass because in an alternate world maybe no one would have known what he did.
There exists no universal perspective of what is harmful and what is not. In fact, the notion that prohibiting gay marriage is harmful is nowhere near as universally accepted as your comment makes it out to be. Remember, California passed Proposition 8 (the proposition to ban gay marriage) with a 52% majority in 2008. Eich's views were in line with the majority. Mozilla sent the message that the majority of Californian voters are not welcome at their company.
The mere fact that a lot of people believe something, doesn't make it right or just. Justice is protecting the weak and the powerless from the powerful, not voting on who has human rights and who doesn't from week to week.
Also, Prop 8 was in 2008. He was appointed to the CEO position in 2014 - 6 years later. He had every opportunity to apologize. Everyone makes mistakes, even big ones. But, he refused to apologize. He held the same opinion in 2014 that he did in 2008 and he made that clear.
Why would he have the right to express his opinion on same-sex-marriage but Mozilla employees wouldn't have the right to express their opinion on his fitness to be their CEO?
And who gets to say what protections people should and should not receive? If a company genuinely believes that pro-LGBT views are harmful, then in your framework they're equally justified to fire employees that donated in opposition to Proposition 8.
I think a lot of people forget that there's a world beyond liberal urban areas. Allowing it to become socially acceptable for companies to fire employees for their political views is also handing a tool for conservatives to suppress their employees' liberal politics.
And again, it's sending the message that the majority of Californians are not welcome at the company. It makes Mozilla hypocrites whenever they purport to support diversity or inclusion, and gives credence to the idea that Silicon Valley companies are deliberately hostile towards non-liberals.
You can't just throw your hands up in the air and say that because there is no absolute scale with which to measure human rights, everything goes. And I think its also not good policy to say that because an organization might* fire a pro-LGTB employee for their views, that everyone should be let to act however they want without consequences. In your view, what publicly expressed opinions would disqualify someone to be a CEO? Anything?
Views on gay marriage shifted rapidly between 2008 and 2014. I think its wrong to assume that just because 52% of people voted to support Prop 8 in 2008 that 6 years later opinions hadn't changed. And lets not forget that Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional in 2010 - 4 years before he was made CEO and continued to publicly support Prop 8.
* - By "might", I mean "has happened a lot for a long time". LGTB people have faced discrimination for a long time for wanting to live their life in a way that harms literally no one. Anti-LGBT people facing consequences for their actions to discriminate against others in a way that benefits literally no one is a relatively recent occurrence.
I don't believe being against LGBT marriages necessarily implies that you are against all forms of LGBT relationships / lifestyles.
Marriage has become regulated by the state due to its implications on all citizens. Just because someone doesn't agree with how the state legislates sexual relationships doesn't mean they should be antogonized. Their views can be beneficial to the argument regardless of which side they take.
Simply shutting down conflicting political ideologies doesn't really lead to any rational discussion on the matter. To give an example, consider the current legal strife with gun control. Some people want the state to increase gun regulation and others don't. If each party simply supports their case by saying the other party is discriminating against their way of life, the discussion wouldn't lead to anything sensibly intelligent.
People should have the ability to defend any argument they wish, so long as they remain civil about it. This is especially the case in matters which actually concern the people themselves. Their propositions may be wrong and detrimental to society but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to express their thoughts.
Everyone has the right to free speech - but no one has the right to avoid consequences for that speech. In 2008, he spoke, via a $1,000 public donation, of his opinion to support Prop 8. It wasn't just some random thought - he had a very specific outcome in mind that he wanted to see enacted that would impact _other_ people's lives. He got the consequence he wanted - Prop 8 passed and same-sex marriage was outlawed. In 2014, Mozilla employed exercised that very same right to speak against his fitness to be CEO. The consequence of that was that he was forced to resign. He doesn't get to pick and choose which consequences he'll allow. Once he speaks, other people get to respond, and thats what they did.
> Everyone has the right to free speech - but no one has the right to avoid consequences for that speech
This is actually not true. For example, it would have been illegal for Mozilla to fire Eich for his donation. This is because political activity is considered protected in California (like gender, race, etc.), so firing someone for making a political statement or for donating to a political cause is illegal.
We will probably learn more about this defense as the Google/Damore case proceeds.
Hi, you are mistaken on many facts here. I'll start with this claim. No employees at the Mozilla Corporation demanded that I resign. Six Mozilla Foundation (the non-profit .org with arms-length management and separate board) tweeted that I should step down (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozil... which fails to note their employer was not the company to which I had been appointed CEO, although I was founder of both orgs). They never worked for me.
At the Mozilla Corporation? That was what @dagenix specified in the grandparent comment by "... his employees ...." Unless they deleted their tweets, let's see those twitter links.
A green handle of "communist_" does not inspire automatic belief that you truly had friends at Mozilla Corporation or know of any such tweets.
Again, if you mean the six Mozilla Foundation employees who tweeted against me as (poorly) reported by Ars Technica (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozil...), they were not "his employees". They worked for an entirely separate organization from the one I was running.
Back-story: Mozilla Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit set up in 2003 (I was founding board member, and a co-founder of mozilla.org in 1998 at the start). Mozilla Corporation is the for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation which exists at arms length to make taxable revenue from Firefox. The two orgs are loosely connected; the Mozilla Foundation is much smaller and all about getting and giving grants.
> Everyone has the right to free speech - but no one has the right to avoid consequences for that speech.
Incorrect. At least, it's incorrect as far as consequences levied by their employers. In the United States, government employees are protected by the First Amendment. E.G. a government department that fired employees for pro or anti gay marriage donations would mean that the government is privileging one political opinion over the other:
> the rationale now is that while government may deny employment, or any benefit for that matter, for any number of reasons, it may not deny employment or other benefits on a basis that infringes that person’s constitutionally protected interests. “For if the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited. This would allow the government to ‘produce a result which [it] could not command directly.’ . . . Such interference with constitutional rights is impermissible."
> In his case, his employees exercised their right to speak, said they thought he wasn't fit to be CEO, demanded his resignation, and he resigned.
This is not entirely correct, and is omitting a substantial part of the story. The company board (who are effectively Eich's bosses) told him to step down as CEO. The CEO doesn't have have a manager and so can't really be fired like a normal employee, but the board telling him to resign is functionally the same thing.
I wasn't saying that there aren't certain protections for speech - there are, and there should be. Its not like once you speak everyone in the room has the right to punch you in the face. What I'm saying, is that once you speak, there are some consequences you must face - one being that other people get to respond with their own speech. In his case, his employees exercised their right to speak, said they thought he wasn't fit to be CEO, demanded his resignation, and he resigned.
> You can't just throw your hands up in the air and say that because there is no absolute scale with which to measure human rights, everything goes. And I think its also not good policy to say that because an organization might* fire a pro-LGTB employee for their views, that everyone should be let to act however they want without consequences. In your view, what publicly expressed opinions would disqualify someone to be a CEO? Anything?
No political views should be inherently fireable offenses, only things like harassment that have nonpartisan criteria. E.g. Supporting proposition 8 is not a fireable offense, actually calling gay employees slurs is. Conversely, opposing stricter border controls is not a fireable offense on its own, saying that anyone who supports Trump's border policies is a Nazi that deserves to be punched is a fireable offense because it's a threat of violence. Firing must be made on non-partisan criteria.
> Views on gay marriage shifted rapidly between 2008 and 2014. I think its wrong to assume that just because 52% of people voted to support Prop 8 in 2008 that 6 years later opinions hadn't changed. And lets not forget that Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional in 2010 - 4 years before he was made CEO and continued to publicly support Prop 8.
Should anyone that supported the McCain–Feingold Act (the act overturned by the Citizens United case), or Chicago's handgun ban be fired as well? Both of those were found to be infringements on people's constitutional liberties. Again, this is what I'm referring to when I say that people many of the justifications for Eich's termination aren't really well thought out, and end up justifying the termination of lots of other people as well. The blanket statement that a certain political view should be a fireable offense because it was later determined to be unconstitutional is going to end up justifying the firing of lots of other people.
If all political views are valid, what about someone that has documented pro-segregation views? Is that person qualified to make decisions that impact the lives of a diverse workforce? If not, where do you draw the line? I'm not trying to make a strawman argument - I'm seriously asking why would this be any different?
The problem isn't that he had some thought in his head - its that he took that thought in his head and turned it into action. And those publicly documented actions made it impossible for his employees to trust him to make decisions in their best interest. Having the trust of his employees is 100% part of his job - the fact that he lacked that made him unfit to be CEO.
Supporting something that turns out to be unconstitutional clearly shouldn't be a fireable offense. But, both of the examples you cite are cases where a person can cite reasonable reason for their support that aren't merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose. I probably made a mistake in mentioning it was overturned at all - I'm just saying, he continued to argue for something that wasn't even relevant anymore - in 2014 when this controversy erupted, same sex marriages were actively occurring in California. It seems likely that some of his employees may have benefited from this. And, yet, in 2014 he continued to support the prohibition of same-sex marriage - actively advocating against the life choices that his employees were making at that very time.
Should people that donate to women-only colleges be fired? After all, that's supporting a type of segregation, and you didn't specify which type of segregation you're referring to. But to answer your point seriously (presuming that you're referring to Jim Crow era segregation), the people that genuinely support those kinds of heinous policies will almost certainly end up committing actual harassment and be fired with cause. I haven't met a single pro-segregationist that hadn't used slurs against Africans within seconds of making their views known. Granted, my sample size isn't particular big.
Banning certain political views almost always going to harm overall inclusion. According to some of the first results on Google 33% of Americans oppose gay marriage [1]. For comparison, the total African American population in the us is under 14% - less than half. Firing an employee for anti-gay marriage politics and then turning around and claiming it is attempting to be an inclusive company is hypocrisy.
Refraining from firing people regardless of their political views would not cause the world to fall apart. Government employers are legally obligated to tolerate employees political views by the 1st Amendment, and can only fire them for other just causes. Over 20 million people are employed by the Federal, State, and local governments in the US so respecting employers' politics clearly feasible.
> But, both of the examples you cite are cases where a person can cite reasonable reason for their support that aren't merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose.
The people that supported Proposition 8 can also cite what they believe are reasonable justifications for their support of Proposition 8. Sure, you may not agree that their justifications are reasonable. But that works both ways. Plenty of gun-rights supporters would claim that gun control is "merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose". So in your moral framework, a gun-rights supporting company would be equally justified in firing pro-gun control employees as Mozilla was in firing Eich, just as long as they consider gun control to be "merely about controlling the lives of others for no purpose".
I really hope you realize that you're supporting the ability of a privileged elite (stockholders, CEOs, managers, etc.) to police their employees' political activity and coerce them into political submission through the threat of termination. Sure, bosses where I live (a liberal costal city) are usually liberal. But in much of the country, they're not.
I was clearly referring to Jim Crow era segregation. And, if your point is that all supporters of Jim Crow era segregation, which is super racist, will inevitably do more things that are super racist, why must we wait for them to do additional super racist things before judging them to be unfit to be a CEO of a large company? Similarly, once someone has demonstrated that they hold opinions contrary to the best interests of their employees, why must those employees wait until after they become CEO for them to demonstrate that fact yet again? If they have demonstrated that they are unfit, they are unfit, and they shouldn't have the position.
> Banning certain political views almost always going to harm overall inclusion.
Nothing was banned here. His position was that same-sex marriage should be illegal. Their position was that someone who supports same-sex marriage isn't fit to be a CEO of a large company, making decisions about a diverse workforce, based in a state where same-sex marriage is legal.
I'm also unclear about your definition of inclusion - is it just finding the largest number of people that happen to agree with each other?
> Refraining from firing people regardless of their political views would not cause the world to fall apart.
Its not about the world falling apart. Its about the right of employees to express their opinion of someones fitness to be their CEO. Which is totally the right of the employees of Mozilla to do.
> I really hope you realize that you're supporting the ability of a privileged elite (stockholders, CEOs, managers, etc.) to police their employees' political activity and coerce them into political submission through the threat of termination.
You are literally arguing that employees (ie: not the privileged elite) shouldn't speak out against the opinions of their CEO (ie: the privileged elite).
> And, if your point is that all supporters of Jim Crow era segregation, which is super racist, will inevitably do more things that are super racist, why must we wait for them to do additional super racist things before judging them to be unfit to be a CEO of a large company? Similarly, once someone has demonstrated that they hold opinions contrary to the best interests of their employees, why must those employees wait until after they become CEO for them to demonstrate that fact yet again? If they have demonstrated that they are unfit, they are unfit, and they shouldn't have the position.
Because there is no non-partisan determination of what is a 'super racist' or otherwise intolerable view, while there is a non-partisan (or at least fairly non-partisan) determination of what is harassment. Plenty of people I know think that any and all race-based affirmative action policies are 'super racist'. Would they justified in telling their direct reports that support affirmative hiring policies, or who donated against Proposition 209 (the proposition that banned race based affirmative action in California public universities) to quit? Sure, it may mean that occasionally someone with extreme political views get hired. But if they genuinely hold views that are truly extreme, they will inevitably end up committing harassment. Again, how for do you think that somebody who genuinely believes in Nazism or enslaving Africans is going to get without making an HR violation? They'd probably make an HR violation during the interview and not even get the job. And if they don't, then that's an indicator that the notion that their views were intolerably extreme wasn't correct.
> Nothing was banned here. His position was that same-sex marriage should be illegal. Their position was that someone who supports same-sex marriage isn't fit to be a CEO of a large company, making decisions about a diverse workforce, based in a state where same-sex marriage is legal.
You're missing the part where Eich's bosses tell him to quit. If managers are going around telling employees to quit when they support X, then the company is effectively banning or at least drastically reducing employee's ability to support X.
> I'm also unclear about your definition of inclusion - is it just finding the largest number of people that happen to agree with each other?
No - the whole point I've been arguing since the beginning is that attempting to cultivate political homogeneity is inevitably going to end up hurting inclusion.
> Its about the right of employees to express their opinion of someones fitness to be their CEO. Which is totally the right of the employees of Mozilla to do.
> You are literally arguing that employees (ie: not the privileged elite) shouldn't speak out against the opinions of their CEO (ie: the privileged elite).
Nowhere do I argue that employees shouldn't speak out against their CEO. Judging by statements made in your other comments, this seems to stem from the erroneous belief that Eich was entirely motivated to resign by Mozilla employees' displeasure to learn his political views. This is not the case. Eich's bosses (the Board) told him to resign. To make Eich's situation analogous to a normal employee, it'd be as if your manager scheduled a meeting with an employee and told them, "We noticed that you donated to ______. We do not tolerate this political view. You need to quit".
So, what, do we hire first grade teachers to be brain surgeons and wait to fire them until they kill a patient? Its preposterous to say that we can't look at past behavior and use it to judge someone's fitness for a job. He advocated against same-sex marriage in 2008. In 2014, same-sex marriage was legal in California. In 2014, he re-affirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage. Why on earth would his employees believe that he would be a good leader for them?
> You're missing the part where Eich's bosses tell him to quit.
If his bosses told him to quit, its because it was clear his employees didn't trust him. And they had every right not to trust him. And absolutely no reason to trust him. He hadn't screwed them in the 11 days he had been CEO, but had in the past and, by reaffirming his beliefs, made it very reasonable for the employees to believe he would in the future. What is the board supposed to do? Fire everyone but him?
> No - the whole point I've been arguing since the beginning is that attempting to cultivate political homogeneity is inevitably going to end up hurting inclusion.
Inclusion isn't about finding the worst examples of humanity and including them - its about including actually diverse people (which his employees actually were), trying to live their own lives, on their own terms, and not dictating to others how to live theirs. Its not about taking a single person, the CEO, and letting them say and do whatever they want. It is totally irrelevant what portion of the US still disagrees with same-sex marriage, unless you are going to argue thats OK. Its not. Its disgusting. Either tell me you believe thats OK or stop arguing that because X% of people believe in discrimination that somehow makes it legitimate. I don't care if you live in LA or in a single stoplight town in the middle of nowhere - discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination.
> Nowhere do I argue that employees shouldn't speak out against their CEO
So, what, the employees get to speak out as long as nothing comes of it? If something comes of it, thats the problem? What is the actual point of speaking out then?
Its been 4 years since he was sacked. Since then, there has not been a wave of pro-LGTB firings across the US. At least not, any more than were being fired before. Since then, there has been a greater recognition of LGTB rights, same-sex marriage is legal across the US, and opinions such as his have been further pushed into the trash can of history where they can live with other bullshit opinions. If employee outrage against a CEO that is clearly mis-aligned with their values, basic human values, is going to cause so many unintended consequences - where are they?
There are no moral absolutes. Life isn't math. But, his opinions, his positions, are abhorrent to any decent human being. You can try to cloak your argument in to a hand-wavy invocation of the idea that morality is changing and the norms of society aren't fixed - but try to defend what he actually advocated for. Is that ok? Tell me its ok to discriminate against your LGTB employees. Put that on record. Tell me that actively working against LGTB rights is ok and is something we should tolerate. Tell me that people that support LGBT rights in a state where same-sex marriage is legal should suck it up and support someone that doesn't believe in their rights. I don't want to hear about some hand-waving side effects - tell me about the actual issue here.
> So, what, do we hire first grade teachers to be brain surgeons and wait to fire them until they kill a patient? Its preposterous to say that we can't look at past behavior and use it to judge someone's fitness for a job.
This is a blatant straw man. Of course people skills and abilities must be considered. At all points in this discussion I have only focused on employee's political behavior. The notion that I have stated that candidates' skills should not be taken into account is a total fabrication on your part.
> Inclusion isn't about finding the worst examples of humanity and including them - its about including actually diverse people (which his employees actually were), trying to live their own lives, on their own terms, and not dictating to others how to live theirs. Its not about taking a single person, the CEO, and letting them say and do whatever they want. It is totally irrelevant what portion of the US still disagrees with same-sex marriage, unless you are going to argue thats OK. Its not. Its disgusting. Either tell me you believe thats OK or stop arguing that because X% of people believe in discrimination that somehow makes it legitimate. I don't care if you live in LA or in a single stoplight town in the middle of nowhere - discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination.
You're writing this with the erroneous notion that the people in charge are going to agree with your views. What about the people who have bosses that are part of the 1/3 of the population that doesn't believe in gay marriage? Are they supposed to just suck it up and get told to quit if they donate to pro-LGBT causes? You make broad statement like, "discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination" but don't consider the fact that lots of people consider things like affirmative action to be unjust discrimination. Heck, even here in California it was banned by popular vote. Does it follow that companies should grep for donors that were against Proposition 209 and tell them to quit? You claim that letting people have their own opinion enables discrimination. Sure, to a degree that's true but letting companies police their employees' opinions is an even bigger enabler of discrimination.
> What is the board supposed to do? Fire everyone but him?
This is another fallacious argument. The board doesn't need to choose between retaining Eich and firing everyone but him. They can fire nobody. Believe it or not, plenty of adults cooperate and work with people that have views different from theirs.
> So, what, the employees get to speak out as long as nothing comes of it? If something comes of it, thats the problem? What is the actual point of speaking out then?
I'm not sure why you're fixating on the employees. I did not mention them until you brought them up. My point has, since the beginning, been about the choice Eich's firing (or if you want to get pedantic, the asking of his resignation) from his superiors. As I have written before, the employees are equally entitled to make their opinions known.
> There are no moral absolutes. Life isn't math. But, his opinions, his positions, are abhorrent to any decent human being. You can try to cloak your argument in to a hand-wavy invocation of the idea that morality is changing and the norms of society aren't fixed - but try to defend what he actually advocated for. Is that ok? Tell me its ok to discriminate against your LGTB employees. Put that on record. Tell me that actively working against LGTB rights is ok and is something we should tolerate. Tell me that people that support LGBT rights in a state where same-sex marriage is legal should suck it up and support someone that doesn't believe in their rights. I don't want to hear about some hand-waving side effects - tell me about the actual issue here.
If your point of view is that the majority of Californians in 2008 we're "abhorrent to any decent human being" then your views are likely fringe. If you can't bring yourself to see what a decade ago was the majority of people, and what is 1/3 today, with even the most basic degree of respect then I don't think your have any business attempting to portray yourself as advocating tolerance. Dismissing half to a third of your countrymen's politics (assuming you're American) as "abhorrent to any decent human being" is the opposite of tolerance.
> "Yes" or "No" - LGTB people have rights?
Yes, LGBT people have rights. Refraining from firing Eich would not have been an infringement of those rights, though. Simply working with a co-worker who believes that civil liberties and rights should be regulated differently than you do is not a violation of those rights and liberties. No more than employing a pro-bussing employee is violating our 14th Amendment rights. No more than employing an employee that disagrees with Citizens Unitied is violating our right to free speech.
You seem to be operating under the noting that mere tolerance of a point of view is tantamount to an endorsement of that view. This kind of thinking is highly corrosive, and it is impossible to build an inclusive group composed of people that harbor this perspective. If a group if such people come together, the only way they would reach harmony is when they achieve political homogeneity. The notion that tolerance of a view is an endorsement of that view is implicitly a demand to be intolerant towards views one disagrees with. It is sobering to meet someone on HN that follows this line of thought.
And who gets to say what protections people should and should not receive?
In the US, the notion of equal protection under law is stated unequivocally in our founding documents. It is not the government's business to sanction some personal relationships but not others.
Not debatable at all, IMO, when looked at objectively,
So to support policies that are later determined to be unconstitutional become fireable offenses? That means anyone that supports public school racial integration policies (as in, deliberately balancing out student populations to counteract de-facto segregation) should be fired. This was determined unconstitutional in 2007 [1]. Anyone that supports racial quotas in higher education also needs to be fired, because that was ruled illegal back in Bakke vs. Regents. Using constitutionality as a basis for whether certain political beliefs are fireable offenses is going to entail the firing of lots of liberals in addition to anti-gay marriage proponents. I don't think this justification was thought through.
It's also worth mentioning that at the time of his firing, the Supreme Court had yet to rule that banning gay marriage was illegal. Eich was fired before the Supreme Court made Proposition 8 unconstitutional.
In most jobs, there are plenty of ways to get fired even if you haven't broken any laws. This was just one of those ways, for one of those employees, at one of those jobs.
Sure, it's legal. What we're discussing is what justification there is to make it socially acceptable to fire or tell people to resign based on political views.
(Shrug) It's acceptable to me and to a bunch of other people, so that by definition makes it "socially acceptable." I reserve the right not to employ Nazi asshats, or to work for them. That's the upside to at-will employment... and the downside of being a Nazi asshat.
In most states, political beliefs do not, and should not, qualify employees for membership in protected classes. Under California law the situation is murkier, but most conservatives like Eich would agree with that sentiment, I'd hope. But then, the definitions of traditional terms like "conservative" are becoming hard to keep up with nowadays.
ICYMI, I've posted before on HN about false claims of unlawful harm that keep coming up. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845509 as a source of links; also for the thread in which it lives, which unfortunately runs to high indentation level before trailing off.
Why does this matter now? Obviously it matters to lots of people (including here in these comments) who keep bringing me up, either to attack Mozilla or to attack me. You can search Twitter and try to keep score -- I think subtweeted sentiment has turned in my favor, but both sides keep going.
My Mozilla exit is a prop in the culture wars, even though I never harmed anyone and am still doing what I've always done: working with people from all backgrounds, innovating via open source and open web tech against the big Internet superpowers who emerge and, due to network effects, end up operating against their users' interests.
It's time to drop the prop and stop fighting. I don't expect everyone to listen, but I'll give it a shot here anyway:
What we need most, on the Web and in the world, is unity against big threats such as surveillance capitalism. Apple and Brave block third party tracking by default. I hope Mozilla will do the same if its search revenue-share deals allow that. In the mean time, if you do choose to use Firefox, you can enable its optional Tracking Protection feature.
It isn't a choice between attention to your case and attention to substance. If people who respect you heed you, and those who don't, don't, then your name by default becomes a cultural prop for the auto-da-fe. That's worth countering with an occasional dissenting web post.
I agree that our most critical current tech challenge, maybe on par with energy, curing disease or extraterrestrial diaspora, is the decentralization of internet services. You are peculiarly positioned to make a positive contribution to that. If the inquisition succeeds in quashing you they may accomplish genuine harm.
I would not exaggerate either my role, or the power of any would-be Inquisition. People give mobs too much credit (to bootstrap power they do not merit) or blame (to excuse or cover up prior problems that can be seen through the mob's crowd, if you are willing to look).
It's also the fact that CEOs embody and represent the entire organisation in a way that individual contributors and even mid-level managers do not. This is a part of the job, alongside the big salaries and the yacht parties.
Consider how people's opinions on Mark Zuckerberg colour their opinions on Facebook, or how often Satya Nadella is referenced in conversations on Microsoft's corporate culture and how it may or may not have changed (and how the previous culture is often literally referred to as the "Ballmer era").
He didn't just have an opinion. He acted on that opinion. In a way designed to harm some of his own employees. That action was publicly recorded. And its not just "some opinion". Its not like he preferred Turkey Club sandwiches to BLTs. He preferred that some of his own employees be denied basic human rights.
It's utterly bizarre how so many people can view politics as if it were as value-neutral as supporting a football team, or as if it's all some high-minded abstract debate.
There is such a thing as respecting a differing opinion. I see more and more tendencies to view differing opinions as something that is simply not acceptable, even for opinions that have been ordinary just a short while back. That is bizarre to me.
Some opinions are trivial. I think Wendy's produces a superior burger to Burger King. Someone else might disagree. We can have a friendly discussion about our points of view.
Other opinions aren't so trivial. Take, for example, denying the right to marry to a whole segment of the population, a right that you yourself enjoy, for no reason whatsoever. Its kinda hard to have a friendly discussion between one group of people that are asking for basic rights for themselves and another group of people that are trying to specifically deny those rights, benefit themselves in no way, and have no good reason why. I'm not really sure why the people being denied those rights are supposed to just throw up their hands and accept that.
And its not a right to be a CEO - its a privilege. Its a false moral equivalency to say that the privilege of being a CEO is somehow equivalent to the basic right to be treated equally.
It doesn't really matter what people thought 10 years ago. Or 100. Recently isn't a proxy for right.
It's neither a right, nor a privilege. It's a job. Was he doing a good job? I would say yes. Did Firefox prosper after he left? I would say no. User marketshare has gone down.
I don't care about 'morality', I just want a good browser.
he was CEO for 11 days. I'm not quite sure how you can say he was doing a good job.
As far as his technical chops, his qualifications are impeccable. And those qualifications have nothing to do with his terrible views. Thats a very different thing than discussing if he has the right stuff to lead a company and make decisions that impact the lives of many, many people.
I followed Eich to the Brave browser. It's really great, but the devtools still don't dock within the window but they're working on it.
Firefox crucified their CEO over his PRIVATE conservative views and that was scary how quick the mob turns on someone. If they turned on the got damn inventor of javascript, how quick will they turn on your minion employee?
If a lot of employees are (very) uncomfortable with their CEO, that CEO is toxic for the company regardless of whether their views are private/public, right/wrong, just/unjust.
One of the two have to go: The CEO, or the employees. Do you want to live in the world where Mozilla fires thousands of employees who disagree with their CEO's view that gay marriage should be prohibited?
> One of the two have to go: The CEO, or the employees. Do you want to live in the world where Mozilla fires thousands of employees who disagree with their CEO's view that gay marriage should be prohibited?
No, this is a false scenario. Neither of the two have to go. It's totally possible for employees to continue to choose to work at the company even if they don't agree with their CEO's political views. Plenty of adults manage to work with people that have significant political differences. A more realistic second choice is that some employees choose to quite and most choose to stay.
The case that is being misrepresented even now in comments on this post consists of the six Mozilla Foundation employees tweeting that I should step down. They did not work for me. It may be they spoke for some who did work for me, but many on my staff were outraged by their tweets. I had support across a broad spectrum of people inside the Mozilla Corporation.
The point remains, the above poster was presenting a false dichotomy. No one had to be fired. Employees may choose to quit, but that is a decision they make themselves.
If where we are at now is the end result, then YES! The employees who truly had a problem should have simply quit and found another job. Most of them probably wouldn't have cared enough to quit.
Mozilla is irrelevant for me now. I just want a browser, I don't care about their political views.
This is also what I hate about Tim Cook and Apple, he's too political.
I'm a Mozilla employee who was there at the time, and I can tell you that there are a lot of misconceptions about how all of that went down. The least inaccurate coverage that I've seen on the topic is https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-under-fire-inside-the-9-da...
So for me it isn't time to give Firefox another try. It's time to keep using Eich's far more innovative new browser, Brave.