HN Explorer

If Brendan Eich is restored as CEO, I will donate $100 dollars to Mozilla.

39 points by audeyisaacs ↗ HN
I am a gay marriage supporter, but I think that pushing a capable CEO out because of their personal beliefs(not their professional conduct) is short-sighted and wrong.

Limiting CEO choices to only those who appear to conform with community beliefs will likely result in a less capable CEO, and/or a CEO who keeps their less agreeable beliefs private.

I'm not the most eloquent arguer, so I will link to some other comments that express my reasoning better than I could myself.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7528773

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7482099

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7482932

https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/451925194290896897 https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/451926526968098817 (there's a whole string of tweets from pmarca)

And a quote from Eich:

“I don’t think it’s good for my integrity or Mozilla’s integrity to be pressured into changing a position,’’ Mr Eich said. “If Mozilla became more exclusive and required more litmus tests, I think that would be a mistake that would lead to a much smaller Mozilla, a much more fragmented Mozilla.’’

At another point, Mr Eich said that attacks on his beliefs represented a threat to Mozilla’s survival. “If Mozilla cannot continue to operate according to its principles of inclusiveness, where you can work on the mission no matter what your background or other beliefs, I think we’ll probably fail,’’ he said.

EDIT: Item 15 before suddenly dropping dead. Come on mods. This was a perfectly reasonable discussion. Oh well...

15 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 34.9 ms ] thread
tellarin
I'm not defending or attacking any position on this comment. Just genuinely curious about this. And the question is not just for the OP.

How do you think you would you feel if you were into a same-sex relationship and working for Mozilla? What about if you were a Mozilla user?

The line between professional conduct and personal beliefs seems to be quite fuzzy to me when around human rights issues. Especially in the CEO case, that is the face of a company.

audeyisaacs
From what I can tell, he seems very clear that in Mozilla he wants to foster a open and friendly environment.

As someone who is close to being a full on libertarian living in Australia, I am almost always working for someone who believes I should have less rights than I believe I should have. It doesn't bother me.

alexeisadeski3
Non starter.

What if you were a devout _insert religion_ and worked for a homosexual?

Same thing.

josecastillo
Here's an anecdote. I have a friend who worked at a tech company in the bay area (not Mozilla). He met and fell in love with a Canadian. They got engaged. At one point after a visit to Canada, they're both headed back to California for a visit. On hearing that the couple is engaged, the border agent refused the Canadian entry to the US: risk to overstay tourist visa.

Now, a straight couple could get a K-1 visa for the fiancé and marry within 90 days, but that was not available to my friend and his fiancé. Instead he was forced to leave his tech job in the bay area, uproot his life and move to Canada to be with the person he loves. That's the effect of Prop 8. That's what Brendan Eich was campaigning for.

There's a difference between working for someone who's different from you, and working for someone who's literally spending money and campaigning to break apart your family. Whose actions stripped away rights you had, and forced you to flee your birthplace to be with the person you love. So no, it's not the same thing. I'm tolerant of people who are different than me. I am not tolerant of people whose actions harm my brothers.

alexeisadeski3
Happy to hear that you've joined the good fight in favor of legalizing polygamy.

I'm not even exaggerating. I personally am very much in favor of legalizing polygamy. And legalizing gay marriage. For the same reason.

Point is this: I don't feel the need to go around getting everyone fired who doesn't want to legalize polygamy.

tellarin
The key is "human rights". The only way to coexist is to respect each other's rights.

A person has the rights to follow whatever religion he/she wants. But that does not give him/her the right to restrict someone else's rights.

A person being homosexual does not restrict the other person religion. It is the same as not agreeing on a personal/political position.

alexeisadeski3
Neither person in my example is infringing upon anyone else's rights, senor.
lostsock
I have been looking for a way to show my support for Brendan since I first read of his standing down this morning and I think your proposal is the best way to show that support; therefore I too will donate $100 to Mozilla if they reinstate Brendan as CEO.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if he no longer wishes to take on the role given what has transpired.

chrismonsanto
He quit Mozilla completely. I am guessing he is sick of all of the pressure. If he came back, there would be an unprecedented shitstorm, probably the exact opposite of what he wants.
audeyisaacs
Pragmatically speaking I think you are right.

I'm going to leave this post up though, because I hope some people will see it and reconsider their viewpoint.

jacknews
I fully support gay rights including that they should be able to marry, etc, and it's shame on the human condition the way some people have been and still are oppressed because of their beliefs and resulting actions.

But this seems to be a case of the abused now becoming the abuser. A very capable and dedicated CEO forced from office because of personal beliefs. This is at the very least, hypocrisy.

homulilly
Equivocating pressuring Eich to step down with oppressing AN ENTIRE CLASS OF PEOPLE is incredibly insulting and makes it really hard to take your claim of supporting gay rights seriously.

Applying political pressure to get a bigot to resign from a largely political organization is not abuse. Contributing to a campaign to deny equality to, again, an entire class of people, is.

People need to cut it out with this faux-academic Devil's Advocate crap and use some common sense.

sanxiyn
I am not sure about this. I 100% think Mozilla should accept technically sound patches from racists and misogynists and people holding otherwise disagreeable views. I don't think Mozilla should elect such people as a CEO.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
dang
Come on mods. This was a perfectly reasonable discussion.

No moderator touched this post; it was flagged to death many times over by users. Please don't make false assertions about HN moderation. It riles people up for a bad reason. You can get questions answered by emailing hn@ycombinator.com.

In my view, this was not a reasonable post, it was piggy-backing on the drama of the day. That's probably why it got flagged.