Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down” • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#91

Post by Mikeb85 » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

josephlord wrote: post #73

eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

Mozilla, much more than most is a political organisation (about freedom and openness) not just a commercial one. It has a mission, it will succeed with community support and goodwill. The political views of the CEO matter. People are not saying (as far as I have heard) that there should be no place at Mozilla for Brendan Eich due to his political views but they are clearly uncomfortable with him leading a political o…

> Mozilla, much more than most is a political organisation (about freedom and openness) not just a commercial one.

What about the freedom to have personal beliefs, and do what you want with your own money and time?

If anything the people criticizing Brendan Eich are trying to take away his freedom...

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#92

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

brandon272 wrote: post #37

I have a huge level of mental conflict on this issue! I am a supporter of equal rights and gay marriage. When I see comparisons made to other civil rights issues (i.e. "Would we accept this guy as CEO if he thought interracial marriage was wrong?" or "Would we accept this guy as CEO if he thought women deserved less pay?") it seems like a no brainer to me that, no, a person who held those views would never be tolerat…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#93

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #32

stormcrowsx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eich was actively trying to stop what many people think should be a human right. He should face flak, and get a hard time over it, they should threaten his position. Even if they don't get him out of CEO it will make the next idiot that's high up in a company think twice before donating to stop human rights.

Come on, he didn't fund the war in Uganda. I don't share his views or anything but I don't see why "not liking the gays" or whatever should have any influence at all on whether or not he's suitable to run a tech company. It's not a political office.

I don't share his views or anything but I don't see why "not liking the blacks" or whatever should have any influence on whether or not he's suitable to run a tech company. It's not a political office.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#94

Post by cmhamill » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

bentruyman wrote: post #52

cmhamill wrote: post #27

Some very strange reactions in this thread. The idea that this somehow validates the notion that Eich's politics don't affect Mozilla as a workplace seems particularly bizarre, to me. My read on this is that there are employees at Mozilla who feel strongly enough about this to speak publicly, and the most likely reason is because they believe that Eich as CEO will affect their workplace.

He's been CTO since 2005. Now his views will suddenly begin to "affect their workplace"?

I asserted nothing of the sort.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#95

Post by suprgeek » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

This is in a perverse way a Great test for Mozilla's stated commitment to inclusiveness. Will they buckle under this pressure to have one of their Employees (CEO) leave because of a Personal Stated opinion, (Barring any evidence to the contrary) solely because of persecution for those views?

Watching this with great interest - how will it play out? Will Brendan Succumb to the pressure and quit to avoid this issue becoming a distraction?

Will he ride it out? Provide clear guidance that it was a personal issue and emphasize personally that this does not reflect Mozilla policy? Something else..?

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#96

Post by DanBC » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:38 PM UTC

Jormundir wrote: post #42

eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

I wouldn't call it a witch hunt. Now every Mozilla employee's work is contributing to Eich's paycheck. The paycheck with which he will (has) donate(d) to oppose gay marriage. If I was a Mozilla employee, this is not something I would want to be contributing to. This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge payche…

How much money (as a private citizen) has he spent on anti-gay causes?

How much money has he spent (as CEO) {i'm having trouble with wording here} keeping Mozilla a safe play for LGBTQ staff?

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#97

Post by npizzolato » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:38 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #8

Just the CEO? Who else shall we burn at the stake? Mary, the office manager, goes to church every Sunday. How did she vote? John over in mobile dev is a devout Muslim, I'll bet he doesn't take kindly to such things as gay marriage. Time to start scanning through those campaign contribution records for Prop 8 and seeing if a JOIN on the employee database gives us any results. I've always held to the idea that my job i…

The comparison between the CEO (and therefore the public face) of a non-profit organization and Mary the office manager is so absurd it's ridiculous. When your actions impact more people, you get put under a harsher spotlight. I'm not sure why that's a difficult concept to grasp.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#98

Post by freyrs3 » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:38 PM UTC

intortus wrote: post #25

mikestew wrote: post #8

Just the CEO? Who else shall we burn at the stake? Mary, the office manager, goes to church every Sunday. How did she vote? John over in mobile dev is a devout Muslim, I'll bet he doesn't take kindly to such things as gay marriage. Time to start scanning through those campaign contribution records for Prop 8 and seeing if a JOIN on the employee database gives us any results. I've always held to the idea that my job i…

There's a huge difference between holding general religious beliefs and contributing financially to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans. I'm a little troubled by the chilling effects that career and public opinion can have on political expression, but it's hard to generate sympathy for blatantly unconstitutional, horrendously discriminatory forms of po…

Philosophically what's the difference between financially supporting a political cause and voting for leaders which support that cause?

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#99

Post by rootedbox » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

If Eich had given 1000 bucks to stopping the abilities of lets say hispanics to marry. He would have never been allowed to be CEO; because we do not accept that type of bigotry. Sadly however bigotry against LGBTQ is still allowed.

For me it is clear and simple. He can not say he will be inclusive if he at a low level doesn't believe in it. In his blog post he only apologized he hurt anyone.. not that his views are outdated, and has changed his mind on the topic.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#100

Post by mquander » Thu, Mar 27, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #61

mquander wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be clear: I believe Brendan Eich is wrong about gay marriage. But I don't think the price of his convictions should be his career at Mozilla, a company he's played a large role in building, when there is no documented instance of him ever disparaging or otherwise harming LGBTQ employees or community members. I don't know what the price of Eich's convictions should be, but I think that a good way to find out is…

No, it's not always positive. Mob mentality like this could be 'good' when applied to civil rights, the fact that he is not a minority and his views not popular in the zeitgeist makes him a good target. Of course this sort of things is considered bad when the target is a minority. Basically, what matters is whether or not you are part of a group that is perceived to have power. That will determine how the mob treats…

I think that there's a real difference between types of behavior in this category. For example, if the same employees were calling him at night to yell the same message at him, I'm sure you'd agree that would be a terrible reaction. There are some pretty rude acts like that which are legal, but probably bad; e.g. the employees could go stand outside protesting loudly at his hypothetical kids' kindergarten, or spam all the Mozilla repositories with fake issues.

However, the specific behavior in the article does not seem like that. It is employees making tweets like "I love @mozilla but I'm disappointed this week" and "I'm an employee of @mozilla and cannot reconcile having @BrendanEich as CEO with our org's culture & mission. Brendan, please step down." That doesn't seem to be harassing or threatening or a witch hunt to me; it's individuals doing an honest job of saying their opinion.

Time will tell whether people start behaving worse than that, but I feel that so far this is an OK model of something you can do in a society when you feel strongly like someone has wronged you (but have no direct recourse.)