7 ms·

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

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.

mongol 8y ago
It was a political opinion. People have different political opinions, even as CEOs.
- dagenix 8y ago
  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.
- ambicapter 8y ago
  Turns out politics has an effect on people's lives, who knew?
  - TillE 8y ago
    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.
    - mongol 8y ago
      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.
      - dagenix 8y ago
        Not all opinions are the same. 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.
        batteryhorse 8y ago
        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.
        dagenix 8y ago
        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.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- throwaway83839 8y ago
  As shitty as I feel defending it, what if it was a religious opinion? I don't think we can have genuine, defensible political opinions so opposed to human rights.
hirundo 8y ago
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.
- dagenix 8y ago
  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.
  - hirundo 8y ago
    > his donation was public. 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.
    - dagenix 8y ago
      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.
manfredo 8y ago
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.
- BrendanEich 8y ago
  Thanks. 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 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. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 is worth a read too on the topic of law and harm. 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.
  - hirundo 8y ago
    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.
caf 8y ago
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").

mongol 8y ago

It was a political opinion. People have different political opinions, even as CEOs.

dagenix 8y ago
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.
ambicapter 8y ago
Turns out politics has an effect on people's lives, who knew?
- TillE 8y ago
  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.
  - mongol 8y ago
    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.
    - dagenix 8y ago
      Not all opinions are the same. 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.
      - batteryhorse 8y ago
        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.
        dagenix 8y ago
        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.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
throwaway83839 8y ago
As shitty as I feel defending it, what if it was a religious opinion? I don't think we can have genuine, defensible political opinions so opposed to human rights.

hirundo 8y ago

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.

dagenix 8y ago
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.
- hirundo 8y ago
  > his donation was public. 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.
  - dagenix 8y ago
    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.

manfredo 8y ago

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.

BrendanEich 8y ago
Thanks. 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 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. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849041 is worth a read too on the topic of law and harm. 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.
- hirundo 8y ago
  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.

caf 8y ago

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").