In my opinion the real issue has little to do with Brendan Eich's political views. Regardless of how you stand on the issue of whether one's politics should impact one's suitability for a job, no one can claim surprise at the community backlash. Least of all the Mozilla board.
The real issue is that the Mozilla board saw this coming, and didn't think it mattered to upset a big chunk of the community. That is hubris, plain and simple.
When your organization is dedicated to community, you can't put community second in your decision-making process. The decision made the Mozilla board look out of touch with their mission.
Following this line of thinking, you can see how even an ardent opponent of gay marriage could be upset by Brendan's appointment, purely on the basis that risking the community is the last thing they should do. I wish more of this discussion would be about the Mozilla board's tone deaf decision, and less grandstanding about politics or freedom of speech.
It's unreasonable to expect the Mozilla Board to have the foresight of the community's reaction. There was no large sect upset by Brendan's appointment on political grounds. There were a few squeaky wheels, a few silent ones, and a silent majority that had no problem with it.
Hubris? Nah. They just misjudged the ability of the media and vocal critics to not spin a historical donation as a wildly out of scope controversy for the sake of attention, pageviews, and a misguided sense of social rights.
As a single, useless data point, I'm not at all involved in the Mozilla community (though I've been a user for a very long time), or in the same-sex marriage fight, nor am I a resident of California. And my first thought when I heard the announcement was basically "really? The Prop 8 guy?"
This is pretty basic stuff for high-profile executive appointments...
I agree that it should have come up in the discussion; I think that even if it did, it is a reasonable decision to think that his appointment as a whole would be worth the risk.
That's really what this was -- a calculated risk, just like all CEO appointments. I think it's just as reasonable to believe that it could have gone the other way -- that there wouldn't have been as big of a backlash.
I disagree that it was foreseeable. In retrospect of course it looks obvious, but they probably figured that this had all blown over from the first time it was "revealed."
I still find myself a bit confused. CTO at an organization like Mozilla isn't very different in public duties than CEO.
I couldn't agree more with this. Regardless of Eich's views, the controversy engendered by his appointment was obvious and foreseeable. The fact that he/Mozilla didn't even seem to have a plan in place for the backlash indicates that he's unsuitable for a CEO role.
In hindsight, perhaps. But how exactly did it come out that he made that contribution? If someone hadn't uncovered it, would he have outed himself by publicly denigrating gay marriage? Seems highly unlikely.
Many people have skeletons in the closet. While 20-somethings might idealistically believe that people ought to be perfect, especially a CEO, in reality there's simply no such thing.
The political parties are painfully aware of the power of a very thorough background investigation to destroy a candidate's chances, regardless of his or her real qualifications. It has happened thousands of times, and I believe we have damaged our society as a result, by holding every candidate up to an impossibly high standard.
The fact that Eich quietly resigned in the face of what amounts to a smear campaign is a sign of real leadership skills. He has class. He did what was best for Mozilla.
A lesser individual might have made some lame apology to save his job, as demanded by his attackers. I respect that he did not do that, and I'd work for a man like Eich in a heartbeat. I just regret that so many have chosen to politicize Mozilla in this fashion, and I no longer have the slightest respect for the organization.
I would ask you: how many is "so many"? I saw five Mozilla Foundation employees object to the appointment. Mozilla Corporation employees seemed generally supportive.
What caused the real problems here were the media circus, the rampant lack of fact-checking in said circus, and okcupid's opportunistic publicity-grab.
Well, I don't know but apparently it was enough people to tip the scales. Some commenters have asserted that a lot of Mozilla employees were upset by the Prop 8 thing, but I haven't seen any factual numbers, just hazy claims based on the myth that "of course everyone opposed Prop 8".
> but apparently it was enough people to tip the scales
Tip which scales? You seem to be under the misapprehension that there was serious internal pressure for Brendan to resign. There was not.
The problem, of course, is convincing you of that. I can point you to https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... but of course you can decide to not believe that. I can also tell you that I'm a Mozilla employee (that's a clear matter of public record anyway) so I have some idea what was going on internally, but you don't have to believe me on that either...
> a lot of Mozilla employees were upset by the Prop 8 thing
Dare I say that this is because there aren't any? But "Employees support their new CEO in spite of disagreeing with him on some political issues" makes a much worse story than "Employees revolt against new CEO", so the press ran with the latter, facts be damned.
I appreciate your efforts to set the facts straight. The FAQ, while straightforward on some points, is vague on one in a way that I can only see as unfortunately intentional.
> Q: Was Brendan asked to resign by the Board?
> A: No. In fact, Board members tried to get Brendan to stay at Mozilla in another role.
You can read this in two ways:
1. The board didn't want Eich to resign as CEO, and when he did, tried to at least get him to remain in another role.
2. The board did want Eich to resign as CEO (but formally it was his decision), and when he did, tried to get him to remain in another role.
My impression, when I read the FAQ, was that it tries to create the impression of 1, but 2 is more likely to have happened. I'm saddened to have confirmed with by reading the NYTimes article which quotes board members precisely to that effect (that they agreed with Eich he should step down as CEO).
The fact that this issue is muddled in the FAQ in a way that seems intentional does not boost my confidence in Mozilla. It isn't as bad as "they plain fired him" which I thought before, but it's still pretty bad.
The correct reading is 1. The vagueness is most definitely not intentional; I'll get in touch with the authors.
There's a difference between "want him to resign" and "agree with his decision to resign once he makes it". My understanding is that Brendan had to actually get pretty angry with the board to get them to agree, fwiw.
Perhaps your understanding is a little off. Maybe it's a prudent position to go back to not really knowing what happened between Eich and the board.
Anyway, I'm done being angry at Mozilla. You guys are doing an important thing. Calls for a boycott are counterproductive and will only hurt us all. What's done is done.
I just can't quite find it in my heart to support you anymore.
For what it's worth, https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat... has been updated with less weaselly language. So at this point my best guess on what happened is that it was Brendan that first brought up resigning, but the board was quite happy that he did so...
I was actually pretty disheartened to read that comment from Brendan, since it directly contradicted what I thought I'd been told by the board members. :(
> If someone hadn't uncovered it, would he have outed himself by publicly denigrating gay marriage?
That's what his contribution was. That's literally what he did.
No one is stopping you from admiring Eich, and no one is stopping you from going and working for him. People who were upset by his publicly stated views chose to vocalize that, and to encourage others who felt similarly not to patronize the company he was heading. Is there any part of that process you'd like to prohibit? This is exactly how free speech is supposed to work -- say anything you like, and accept the consequences.
What public statements did he make? Kindly share the link; I missed this somehow. It was my understanding that he did not make any public statements about his views on gay marriage but simply donated money to Prop 8, then someone was able to find this out because in California such a donation is public information.
Are we really doing this? A public contribution to a specific cause is, of course, a statement. Now please, quote the dictionary definition of "statement" back at me to make this HN conversation complete.
The board probably assumed that the Prop 8 issue had already been settled in the court of public opinion when Brendan's donation was made public in 2012.
The board absolutely did not see this coming, everyone knew there would be some reaction but absolutely nowhere near the level that there was, that should seem immediately obvious from the reaction.
For those closer to the organisation it looks very different, Brendan was already CTO, he was a co founder and very much the 'face' of the company, the community guidelines very much espouse diversity and leaving personal beliefs at the door in the interest of collaboration.
In hindsight it was very obviously a mistake, but everything is plain ...
Its fairly sad that the only post about this whole situation that isnt writing linkbaiting headlines to the point of lying is filled with fairly weak arguments.
Its a divisive topic, and it deserves to be, but I would really love to see more thoughtful conversations being given attention, despite them not having catchy titles like "employees revolt"
The third link ("for the record") is particularly useful.
Just FYI -- It is also part of this submission (liked in text). And also was submitted earlier on HN. And promptly burried by flags etc. During the #Hot_topic discussion the day the news came out.
The subtitle is more memorable: "For the Record - and The Tragedy of Mozilla".
That was definitely a better article than this one. I'd say that the flagging over the past few days has had a negative effect on HN's ranking of posts. Perhaps the mods could step in to counteract it under such circumstances?
Eich might have defenses, but Philip's writing here is extremely weak.
1. A lot of people aren't viewing it as a "political" view like they would taxation or immigration. They see it as straightforward human rights. Just like we'd expect backlash against someone against "interracial" marriage. Even if we're saving those cross-race couples from expensive litigation!
2. He spoke about his views and got all cagey. If it was an accidental donation for a friend, he could simply admit so. Instead he refuses to elaborate. Perhaps he hates Prop8 and just wanted to see where this would end up. Or perhaps he is against all marriages in their current construct. If such things were true, then he could state his proper views and it'd be finished and mostly blown over.
3. It still might be an overall loss as civil rights will almost certainly end up in the right place. But it's not clear that an open web, for as much as Mozilla is fighting for that, will happen. I'd accept a hand from the most evil person in the world if my alternative was drowning.
I agree that Greenspun's arguments are disappointingly weak.
I'd like to try to tackle your point 1, since I haven't seen people do that before. I should preface that I am indeed in favor of marriage equality, yet I think that it is incorrect to treat it as a human rights issue, or even an issue of equality before the law.
If you treat it as such, then marriage itself (or, rather, its sanctioning by the state, with all the attendant privileges for married people and corresponding burdens on the community) is an inherently discriminatory institution. Fiscal benefits? Extended insurance? Visitation rights? Why should these privileges be enjoyed solely by married people?
Countering that anyone who wants these benefits can get married is as obtuse as pointing out that homosexuals always had the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. If I am unmarried, why can't I name my cousin as a dependent for health insurance? Why can't I have my best friend immigrate to the US to be with me, instead of a spouse I don't have? What if I plan to be celibate all my life, but have strong platonic relationships? What if, instead, I am a polygamist?
It's quite obvious that, if these are indeed civil rights, let alone human rights, then any individual citizen should be able to enjoy them; and those that necessarily involve more than one person should be applicable to any pairing (or group?) of a citizen's choosing. Why should people who are not in a romantic relationship be treated as second-class citizens?
If, instead, they are not human rights or civil rights, but privileges granted by the state because there is a public interest in encouraging and supporting marriage, then the question of how far and to whom these privileges should extend is a perfectly legitimate matter of debate.
I strongly agree; the entire setup of marriage enshrined in law the way it currently is is just wrong. It discriminates against polygamists, as you note, any certainly other groups. The societal rights and burdens of marriage should definitely be available to arbitrary consenting parties.
Even more so then, that the genders of the parties involved are completely irrelevant.
How about some honesty? Eich spent money to oppose gay marriage and now he is hated by most everyone here. That hate will be disguised as "objective facts" and "best for Mozilla" or even "free market" and many other methods to cover up the real feelings and beliefs. Under all that smooth, phony bullshit is this simple truth, "I hate Eich for supporting Prop 8 and I will do anything in my power: lie, smile, scream, calmly debate, speak intellectually, smear, etc. needed to fuck him over." And you won... fine. Just be honest about your feelings and motives.
Brenden Eich did not bother to clarify any of this (as far as I know), so we're all left to our own best guesses as to what he believes and why he gave that money.
And, sure, maybe someone broke into his home and held a gun up to his head, forcing him to give that money. Or maybe he got a bit too drunk at a pro-gay marriage rally and accidentally checked the wrong box while making a donation. I can imagine a million excuses.
Or maybe he just doesn't like the homosexual lifestyle for whatever reason and decided to support the continued pointless theft of freedom from a large class of Americans.
If you read the article linked in Greenspun's post you would know that Eich could not have actually clarified his views without violating Mozilla guidelines. He has been very consistent about adhering to those guidelines.
He could not clarify his views if they conflict with Mozilla's (if they're exclusionary). So if that was the reason, then that sort of clarifies his views, doesn't it?
One of the blog comments linked to a Guardian article claiming that Eich had also contributed to Pat Buchanan's and Ron Paul's presidential campaigns. Both men have made quite inflammatory and intolerant public statements on homosexuality.
It seems to have been part of a long-standing pattern of belief and behavior on Eich's part.
(I'm not saying his resignation was a good thing. As long as he didn't bring it into Mozilla, I think his personal beliefs were his business alone. But it's pretty clear that those beliefs are consistent with his Prop. 8 donation.)
The real issue is that he was appointed CEO of a non-profit... dependent on the generosity of others for its survival. Controversy, like this is kryptonite to all non-profits. Eich gets points for stepping down rapidly.
Was there ever a movement to force Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) to resign? He was actually a former member, but he kept winning elections until his death in 2010.
Tyler Lopez contrasted Byrd and Eich in his Slate article about Mozilla:
After years of publicly promoting virulently racist ideologies, Byrd came to see the harm he had caused, eventually noting in his memoir, "It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career, and reputation." But he didn’t stop there. In fact, he never stopped apologizing, once saying in 2005: "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened." By acknowledging his past racism so candidly and emphatically, Byrd salvaged not just his career but also his dignity.
I personally hold both in extremely low esteem. I suppose their apologies would mean more to me if they weren't groveling for mercy of how people would remember them at the ends of their hateful lives. Not that it matters, but if they truly meant the words they said and were alive today, I would wish them peace, but the funny thing about legacies is that they're usually founded on what you did more than what you said. We put kids in prison for decades for crimes that impact virtually nobody but these monsters terrorized hundreds of thousands behind the force of government and got away with it.
It's an interesting point. The KKK was much more popular than it is now. He was a leader of a local KKK chapter (it is and has been much less centralized than most people realize) during his early 20s.
I would guess that most of us here during our youth have associated with people we don't care to associate with now. Should we be demonized and ostracized for the rest of our lives for youthful indiscretions? Or even for belonging to movements that were popular at the time, but have since fallen out of favor? The KKK had millions of members during the 1920s.
At the risk of blackballing myself, I signed up for a campus Trotskyist email list while I was in college. I didn't attend any events, grew tired of their rhetoric and eventually unsubscribed. Should I decline promotions for fear of being demonized by association with what most consider a radical left-wing group in my past, even though I don't associate or agree with them now?
If funny you say that, because one of the highest ranking Democrats in the Senate until his death in 2010, Sen Robert Byrd was an actual klansman with a long history of blatant racism, from fighting against racial integration in the military to filibustering the Civil Rights Act.
> “How do we know that he is anti-gay? Has he been quoted as saying anything against gay people? Can we reliably infer from a donation made in 2008 what his opinions might be in 2014, six years later? Do we know anything about why he made the donation six years ago?
I think the worst bit of PR about this whole thing is that Brendan didn't just come out an answer these questions when this became an issue again. You could easily argue that he is no way required to do that, and I would agree with that, but that course of action doesn't make the issue go away.
I also feel like Brendan and Mozilla misunderstood the issue from the beginning. The concern people have is not limited to equality at Mozilla but concern people have with equality in the world. The official statement made by Brendan and Mozilla was limited to the former and placated no one.
He couldn't answer those questions because doing so would have been against the guidelines he agreed to as a Mozilla employee & contributor. All the interviews were with Brendan Eich, the new Mozilla CEO, not with Brendan Eich the person.
The first comment on that post points out the most obvious logical fallacy of this post - CEO != employee. The primary role of a CEO is to be a spokesperson for a company, and as such, what they say (and political donations, at least according to the Supreme Court, are speech) matters.
What's surprising in all this was that his 2008 donation was already old news known back in 2011, it just took a new news cycle as his new role as CEO for the story to be resurrected and for it to create a backlash essentially personifying him as a major Prop 8 activist, when he was just a single donator in 2008, known only to the public due to Californian law requiring donations to be open for public record and as far as anyone can tell has has never made any public comment in favor of Prop 8 or otherwise since.
In essence, the entire incident felt like mob Internet justice dispensed, where he was depicted as the Prop8 leader and if you believed in Prop 8 you should also be demanding his resignation. Like many divisive issues with strong public opinions online before it, it doesn't take long before it descends into forming divisive stand points, fusing characters involved with the issue itself and opponents demanding maximum harm and consequences. It seems all to easy to demand the end of someones lifetime career.
It will be interesting whether public crucifixion and boycotts will continue for the hundreds of other employees of major tech companies that also donated to Prop 8 (of which Obama was a supporter in 2008), where more than 60% of Intel employees that donated were in favor of Prop 8: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-rare-are-anti-gay-mar...
I don't understand what the message is in all this, that if you donated (or voted?) you should not be allowed to be a CEO of a technology company? Any company? Even a company you founded? Even after 6 years without any signs of discriminating behavior? How long should it take or is it a life-sentence?
It's also concerning the major role Media can have, who seemingly have the ability to be a catalyst victim selection and control of public opinion, able to spark outrage with their influence and interpretation bias.
Will it end here, or was Brendan Eich just an example of token justice? Seemed strange that out of all donators, a founder of the Mozilla foundation and a crusader for the open web, ended up being it.
Are other companies owned by foundations and mainly a "community"? Does it seem strange that a community to further help the Internet would be strongly for equality? Or even that they might think that arbitrary restrictions based on gender is an inelegant hack, and someone that would favour arbitrary rules to not be thinking very well?
And are other companies really beholden to their users so much?
The duration wasn't relevant as he explicitly declined to say anything about his "personal views", leading people to believe he still supports them. Other companies are fairly good at backpedaling and saying they didn't really mean it, whatever it may be.
And anyways, no one is saying he's not allowed to be the CEO. Just that apparently a lot of people got annoyed at that and felt it to be wrong in some way. I don't see any "life sentence" here. If I start promoting the idea that stupid people be discouraged from reproducing, I shouldn't be surprised that folks might not want me in a public role, even if I'm right.
The whole mob mentality is a bit concerning - I don't recall much discussing about Eich's suitability or the higher importance of what he's doing.
GoDaddy got quite a bit of hate due to the founder smiling with a shot elephant.
Yeah a couple of Mozillians who've worked closely with him mentioned news of the donation were at odds and struck them by surprise, also because it was not otherwise observable in any of his behavior.
It starts to become a litmus test when trying to define when it's acceptable to boycott and demand resignation. Was Mozilla a special case because of their mission and foundation status? What behavior makes someone's position unacceptable? A large donation? a small donation, a vote? Or is it due to outside community consensus at the time? so when the donation was discovered in 2011, it wasn't appropriate, but reappearing after more passing years it is?
The real issue is that the Mozilla board saw this coming, and didn't think it mattered to upset a big chunk of the community. That is hubris, plain and simple.
When your organization is dedicated to community, you can't put community second in your decision-making process. The decision made the Mozilla board look out of touch with their mission.
Following this line of thinking, you can see how even an ardent opponent of gay marriage could be upset by Brendan's appointment, purely on the basis that risking the community is the last thing they should do. I wish more of this discussion would be about the Mozilla board's tone deaf decision, and less grandstanding about politics or freedom of speech.