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You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: for an extreme example

You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: for an extreme example, look at how closely every single aspect of US presidential candidates' lives are picked over, both present and past. Well, obviously I couldn't downvote your comment, and I hope others won't either, since you're essentially right. I'm just disappointed that the Mozilla CEO position is something that requires playing a "political game" in the manner you're describing. "Politics" in the general sense, of course, exists everywhere there's human interaction, but our civic society is damaged when bright, motivated people are discouraged from participating in it lest their actions be held against them in other spheres of their lives. I'm most disturbed at the number of people who seem to think that it would be a great idea if we could, for example, keep track of the political donations of everyone we do business with so as not to "reward" those on the other side of whatever issues we care deeply about. After all, it's just an application of our "free speech"! That would, I think, be utterly poisonous to our way of life. If this kind of economic activism stays confined to CEO's of open source companies with dependence on their communities' views, I guess that isn't so terrible.

davidw 13y ago
I agree that it's important to be able to interact in society at large with others whose beliefs may be quite different from your own. At my own self-funded business, http://LiberWriter.com http://LiberWriter.com we get our share of political books, some of which I... am not a fan of, putting it mildly. But we accept their money and try and do a good job on all our books. I liked grellas' comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7567700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7567700 But that said, I guess everyone - or most people at least - has some things where there really is a line. I would not want to do business with someone on record as having donated to and espousing the views of the KKK, for instance. If they're the teller at the supermarket, I'm not likely to find out about it, but once someone steps into the spotlight, that kind of thing has a higher chance of surfacing, and when faced with it, I'm going to act on my own views. (Regarding LiberWriter, no, we've never had any books that extreme, thankfully). So I guess that's another reason why being the CEO is different.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  I wish grellas' comment were reposted in every thread like this with the same regularity that links to Betteridge's law get posted in every article with a "?" at the end of the title.

davidw 13y ago

I agree that it's important to be able to interact in society at large with others whose beliefs may be quite different from your own. At my own self-funded business, http://LiberWriter.com http://LiberWriter.com we get our share of political books, some of which I... am not a fan of, putting it mildly. But we accept their money and try and do a good job on all our books. I liked grellas' comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7567700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7567700 But that said, I guess everyone - or most people at least - has some things where there really is a line. I would not want to do business with someone on record as having donated to and espousing the views of the KKK, for instance. If they're the teller at the supermarket, I'm not likely to find out about it, but once someone steps into the spotlight, that kind of thing has a higher chance of surfacing, and when faced with it, I'm going to act on my own views. (Regarding LiberWriter, no, we've never had any books that extreme, thankfully). So I guess that's another reason why being the CEO is different.

twoodfin 13y ago
I wish grellas' comment were reposted in every thread like this with the same regularity that links to Betteridge's law get posted in every article with a "?" at the end of the title.