3 ms·

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Brendan was NOT 'incredibly' suited for the job. Let me explain: I have no doubt that Brendan was an incredible CTO/is

by adl 13y ago

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Brendan was NOT 'incredibly' suited for the job. Let me explain: I have no doubt that Brendan was an incredible CTO/is an excellent hacker/engineer. But being CEO is not about that, it's about being a leader. Being a uniter and a communicator. a galvanizer to the corporation/community he was trying to lead. Forget about his donation a few years ago. In the short time he was CEO, he had the opportunity to weather the storm (so to speak) he and Mozilla Corp found themselves in. But in fact, by avoiding the issue, he dug a even deeper hole. His one interview about the issue to The Guardian was a complete mess PR wise: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-ceo-brendan-eich-refuses-to-quit http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-ce... It was a mistake to appoint him as CEO. I'm sad that he left Mozilla, he could have continued to provide a lot of value to Mozilla and the Open Web in several capacities, But he was not "incredibly well-suited" for the job as Mozilla CEO, IMHO.

danudey 13y ago
This is an excellent point. Even if you feel as though Eich's donations didn't disqualify him from the position, or if you didn't feel that boycotting a product based on its CEO's stated views was bad, he handled this mess absolutely horribly. I could come up with a lot of better ways to say what he tried (and failed) to communicate, and whether those points are relevant or not, he completely botched communicating them at all. For example, his comments about LGBT rights in Indonesia appeared to be about how Mozilla, as a global company in a global market, has to tread carefully in non-liberal markets, because coming out as strongly, unshakeably, and vocally in favour of LGBT rights could carve you out of entire markets which would be willing to look the other way but won't tolerate 'shoving it in their faces' so to speak. Instead, it sounded like 'gay rights isn't really a given, so who knows how things will end up right?', which sounds to me like he's saying 'This fight isn't over yet, we still might win', which is ten times worse than just saying nothing.

by adl 13y ago

danudey 13y ago

This is an excellent point. Even if you feel as though Eich's donations didn't disqualify him from the position, or if you didn't feel that boycotting a product based on its CEO's stated views was bad, he handled this mess absolutely horribly. I could come up with a lot of better ways to say what he tried (and failed) to communicate, and whether those points are relevant or not, he completely botched communicating them at all. For example, his comments about LGBT rights in Indonesia appeared to be about how Mozilla, as a global company in a global market, has to tread carefully in non-liberal markets, because coming out as strongly, unshakeably, and vocally in favour of LGBT rights could carve you out of entire markets which would be willing to look the other way but won't tolerate 'shoving it in their faces' so to speak. Instead, it sounded like 'gay rights isn't really a given, so who knows how things will end up right?', which sounds to me like he's saying 'This fight isn't over yet, we still might win', which is ten times worse than just saying nothing.