6 ms·

Don’t sanitize it, he was fired for being anti-gay. That should make it a little clearer why funders won’t touch him (and many won’t touch his new work).

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
I did not know that. It is odd though. I used to remember no one cared what about your Views as long as you were good at what you did. CS was as close to meritocracy as it could have been. It is a shame.
- sp332 7y ago
  "Views" are one thing... I guess. Working to make sure your employees don't get the legal right to get married is another.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    Ahh, I see now. So it is not just Views. It is the wrong kind of Views. The guy basically the kinda guy that kicks puppies and worships Hitler. And anyone who associates with him is as bad or worse for being complicit nay culpable.. And the only thing that is not asked is whether he was good at what he did. Was he good at what he did apart from being bad bad anti-homosexual?
    - wwright 7y ago
      Part of his job was to acquire and retain employees, allocate capital, and engage in public relations. Spending his personal money on fucking over other people (with no real benefit to the world), many of whom worked for or could work for him, is a bad sign about those parts of his job. (That may not be an argument for the board to fire him, of course, but it is an answer to “how good is he at his job?”)
      - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
        Well, how is him spending his personal money anyone's business but his own? Now, you could make an argument that his sort of mob mentality is why people now skulk around behind various trusts, llcs and PACs to any kind of political work other people may dislike. To your point, I guess it really depends on how you define his set of responsibilities, which is a valid point to make. I thought of something very limited ( writing lines of code ). From that perspective.. why does it matter who he donates to and why. Is it not up to him to decide?
        wwright 7y ago
        He was the CEO, so it was much more than coding. For a regular software engineer (ie, no direct reports) I think it’s a very different calculus. And it _is_ up to him to decide how to spend his money. But if he spends that money on things that deeply impact other people, it is more than fair for other people to care.
  - oceanplexian 7y ago
    Strange, I don't remember any Mozilla employees organizing and rallying for political causes in the 1990s, and Mozilla was certainly around, if not the dominant platform at the time. Gay rights was no less of an issue then than it is today, it simply hadn't been popularized by the media and endorsed by politicians and corporations. Personally I find it abhorrent that anyone was so quick to rally against Brendan Eich. If we keep going down this path, all we'll be left with are people that change their opinions on a whim and flip flop on issues so quickly that they resemble politicians. I'd rather have a good leader I don't agree with on every issue, than a poor leader who's trying to pretend to be on the right side of whatever political stance is in-vogue.
- burkaman 7y ago
  > I used to remember no one cared what about your Views as long as you were good at what you did. This has never been true in any field in any place in the history of the world.
- kick 7y ago
  CS was never close to meritocracy (I'd argue that finance is/was historically far closer to meritocracy than CS ever was). Eich was raised in the Valley, got a Master's in CS before he had gotten a job, and was a millionaire and investing in Silicon Valley real estate before he had been working for ten years (he never started a company, and only created Javascript after something like eleven). There are people working on life-saving infrastructure in CS who've been working for forty years who don't have a million. Also, "your Views" are different from "your Actions." If I think you're ridiculous, so what? If I think you're so ridiculous that I pay people money to promote a law that would increase what you have to pay in taxes, suddenly everyone cares, and rightfully so!
  - oceanplexian 7y ago
    I don't agree. While things might be changing,I know for a fact that on my journey, I went from having no degree or experience, to becoming a senior engineer at one of the largest companies in the world, solving some of the hardest problems in the world, with nothing more than luck, a computer, and a passion for learning. And I know many other people in the same boat, which I hear is not the norm in other professions. So, take that anecdotal evidence as you will. But I think I'm not the only one, and a lot of people will disagree with you. We're part of one of the only professions in the world where you can enjoy a very high standard of living in a white-collar profession with little to no expectation of having academic credentials.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    I can see that ( finance-wise ). Tbh, I did not know there were this many female bank CEOs until I just checked a moment ago. I was pleasantly surprised. As for meritocracy, in the 90s no one cared who my online persona was. My persona was about as eye-grabbing as the one I use here. My contributions, for lack of a better term, were dismissed for being crap, which I eventually understood. I think people miss out on that. As for your point actions and views, I respectfully disagree. You only seem to separate them, because you dislike his views, the resulting words and would like them not to be translated into action. I can understand that, but it sounds .. convenient? You are free to talk about stuff, but the moment you get politically active you get shunned? It seems very backwards to me.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  > CS was as close to meritocracy as it could have been. ...as long as you were a white, heterosexual man in the US.
zaksoup 7y ago
To be clear, it wasn't that he was "anti-gay" it was that he donated $1000 to Prop 8 in 2008, a California Proposition that made gay marriage illegal in CA until Obergefell struck it down 7 years later. This is important because it is a clear delineation between "privately disagreeing but allowing individuals their freedom" and "actively campaigning to take away rights from Mozilla employees and users".
doublekill 7y ago
Did he not donate to a legal political cause, without publicizing it? I doubt funders care about your opinions on gay marriage, but they do care a lot about the stink the cancel culture raised around him. The poison seems to be applied externally.
- wwright 7y ago
  Legality and morality are very often unrelated; in this case, the implication is not that he did something illegal, but that he is an asshole for spending his money for the purpose of making other people’s lives worse to the benefit of nobody. Personally, I think that’s a perfectly good reason for not giving him more money. “Cancel culture” is many people (many of whom matter to investors in one way or another) stating that they also feel that that is a bad place to put money.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
BrendanEich 7y ago
Don't lie: Mozilla itself says they didn't fire me, why don't you believe them? https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... In fact per CA labor law it would be illegal to fire me for "being anti-gay": https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=1101 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... et seq. And of course, once I got Brave started outside the valley, we got "funders" in the valley to invest, including many top VC firms (who now constitute <10% of all funds we raised to date so don't switch horses to argue we are VC-controlled).
Thorentis 7y ago
So being fired for holding a particular view is okay now? Regardless of your views, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of corporations having a de facto role in enforcing public morality, through who they chose to hire and fire. People okay with this have obviously learned nothing from the days where you could be fired for being gay. Other way around? Nothing wrong with it according to some people. This whole trend is worrying. Having said that - corporations do have a right to hire and fire who they please. But it is important to at least acknowledge "cancel culture" as a legitimate and immature trend that is happening. Often the pressure to fire somebody comes from the outside, not from within.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

I did not know that. It is odd though. I used to remember no one cared what about your Views as long as you were good at what you did. CS was as close to meritocracy as it could have been. It is a shame.

sp332 7y ago
"Views" are one thing... I guess. Working to make sure your employees don't get the legal right to get married is another.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  Ahh, I see now. So it is not just Views. It is the wrong kind of Views. The guy basically the kinda guy that kicks puppies and worships Hitler. And anyone who associates with him is as bad or worse for being complicit nay culpable.. And the only thing that is not asked is whether he was good at what he did. Was he good at what he did apart from being bad bad anti-homosexual?
  - wwright 7y ago
    Part of his job was to acquire and retain employees, allocate capital, and engage in public relations. Spending his personal money on fucking over other people (with no real benefit to the world), many of whom worked for or could work for him, is a bad sign about those parts of his job. (That may not be an argument for the board to fire him, of course, but it is an answer to “how good is he at his job?”)
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
      Well, how is him spending his personal money anyone's business but his own? Now, you could make an argument that his sort of mob mentality is why people now skulk around behind various trusts, llcs and PACs to any kind of political work other people may dislike. To your point, I guess it really depends on how you define his set of responsibilities, which is a valid point to make. I thought of something very limited ( writing lines of code ). From that perspective.. why does it matter who he donates to and why. Is it not up to him to decide?
      - wwright 7y ago
        He was the CEO, so it was much more than coding. For a regular software engineer (ie, no direct reports) I think it’s a very different calculus. And it _is_ up to him to decide how to spend his money. But if he spends that money on things that deeply impact other people, it is more than fair for other people to care.
- oceanplexian 7y ago
  Strange, I don't remember any Mozilla employees organizing and rallying for political causes in the 1990s, and Mozilla was certainly around, if not the dominant platform at the time. Gay rights was no less of an issue then than it is today, it simply hadn't been popularized by the media and endorsed by politicians and corporations. Personally I find it abhorrent that anyone was so quick to rally against Brendan Eich. If we keep going down this path, all we'll be left with are people that change their opinions on a whim and flip flop on issues so quickly that they resemble politicians. I'd rather have a good leader I don't agree with on every issue, than a poor leader who's trying to pretend to be on the right side of whatever political stance is in-vogue.
burkaman 7y ago
> I used to remember no one cared what about your Views as long as you were good at what you did. This has never been true in any field in any place in the history of the world.
kick 7y ago
CS was never close to meritocracy (I'd argue that finance is/was historically far closer to meritocracy than CS ever was). Eich was raised in the Valley, got a Master's in CS before he had gotten a job, and was a millionaire and investing in Silicon Valley real estate before he had been working for ten years (he never started a company, and only created Javascript after something like eleven). There are people working on life-saving infrastructure in CS who've been working for forty years who don't have a million. Also, "your Views" are different from "your Actions." If I think you're ridiculous, so what? If I think you're so ridiculous that I pay people money to promote a law that would increase what you have to pay in taxes, suddenly everyone cares, and rightfully so!
- oceanplexian 7y ago
  I don't agree. While things might be changing,I know for a fact that on my journey, I went from having no degree or experience, to becoming a senior engineer at one of the largest companies in the world, solving some of the hardest problems in the world, with nothing more than luck, a computer, and a passion for learning. And I know many other people in the same boat, which I hear is not the norm in other professions. So, take that anecdotal evidence as you will. But I think I'm not the only one, and a lot of people will disagree with you. We're part of one of the only professions in the world where you can enjoy a very high standard of living in a white-collar profession with little to no expectation of having academic credentials.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  I can see that ( finance-wise ). Tbh, I did not know there were this many female bank CEOs until I just checked a moment ago. I was pleasantly surprised. As for meritocracy, in the 90s no one cared who my online persona was. My persona was about as eye-grabbing as the one I use here. My contributions, for lack of a better term, were dismissed for being crap, which I eventually understood. I think people miss out on that. As for your point actions and views, I respectfully disagree. You only seem to separate them, because you dislike his views, the resulting words and would like them not to be translated into action. I can understand that, but it sounds .. convenient? You are free to talk about stuff, but the moment you get politically active you get shunned? It seems very backwards to me.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
> CS was as close to meritocracy as it could have been. ...as long as you were a white, heterosexual man in the US.

zaksoup 7y ago

To be clear, it wasn't that he was "anti-gay" it was that he donated $1000 to Prop 8 in 2008, a California Proposition that made gay marriage illegal in CA until Obergefell struck it down 7 years later. This is important because it is a clear delineation between "privately disagreeing but allowing individuals their freedom" and "actively campaigning to take away rights from Mozilla employees and users".

doublekill 7y ago

Did he not donate to a legal political cause, without publicizing it? I doubt funders care about your opinions on gay marriage, but they do care a lot about the stink the cancel culture raised around him. The poison seems to be applied externally.

wwright 7y ago
Legality and morality are very often unrelated; in this case, the implication is not that he did something illegal, but that he is an asshole for spending his money for the purpose of making other people’s lives worse to the benefit of nobody. Personally, I think that’s a perfectly good reason for not giving him more money. “Cancel culture” is many people (many of whom matter to investors in one way or another) stating that they also feel that that is a bad place to put money.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

BrendanEich 7y ago

Don't lie: Mozilla itself says they didn't fire me, why don't you believe them? https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... In fact per CA labor law it would be illegal to fire me for "being anti-gay": https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=1101 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... et seq. And of course, once I got Brave started outside the valley, we got "funders" in the valley to invest, including many top VC firms (who now constitute <10% of all funds we raised to date so don't switch horses to argue we are VC-controlled).

Thorentis 7y ago

So being fired for holding a particular view is okay now? Regardless of your views, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of corporations having a de facto role in enforcing public morality, through who they chose to hire and fire. People okay with this have obviously learned nothing from the days where you could be fired for being gay. Other way around? Nothing wrong with it according to some people. This whole trend is worrying. Having said that - corporations do have a right to hire and fire who they please. But it is important to at least acknowledge "cancel culture" as a legitimate and immature trend that is happening. Often the pressure to fire somebody comes from the outside, not from within.