"On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla."
He could have stayed if he wanted to. Yes, it would have hurt their brand if he did, and yes it should have. Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights. Thanks to people like Eich, for seven years me and my husband had to lie and check "single" on all of our federal and state forms. For seven years we had to worry about being denied hospital visitation should one of us fall ill. We had to worry about how we'd handle inheritance should one of us pass. And on and on.
So yes, everyone is entitled to their own voice. Eich had a right to make that donation. And other people had a right to protest and boycott over it. Mozilla did not cave to the protests, so there was no free speech violation here.
> "On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla."
Yeah as voluntarily as those politicians resigning to spend more time with their families really resign to spend more time with their families. It's not fooling anybody else, and I have very hard time believing it's fooling you. He resigned because he was asked to resign. That's how top management firing is done.
> He could have stayed if he wanted to.
Physically - yes, I guess, until they call security and carry him out :) Seriously - no, when Powers That Be in your org ask you to resign, you resign.
> Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights.
So if somebody who thinks firing people because they have different political opinion than you is wrong, would arrange to get you fired from your job - you'd be completely ok with that, according to your beliefs? Or it's only your political enemies that have to lose their jobs for their politics, but never you?
> Mozilla did not cave to the protests,
Mozilla absolutely, totally and completely caved to the protests.
> So if somebody who thinks firing people because they have different political opinion than you is wrong, would arrange to get you fired from your job - you'd be completely ok with that, according to your beliefs?
If they were truly my convictions, I would stand by them and tell the world that I was fired for my beliefs. I wouldn't suddenly become a liar. Especially not to protect the company that just fired me.
If what you say is true, and there is zero evidence that it is, then I would lose the very last tiny bit of respect I have for Eich. It would also mean the Mozilla board was truly and utterly incompetent; because this was an extremely predictable result. They already knew of Eich's donation. And anyone with a functioning brain would have realized that this would become a much bigger issue when he was promoted to CEO.
We do, however, share common ground that nobody should be fired for their personal beliefs (nor for that matter, for what they do in their personal time.) Yet at the same time, I refuse to accept a world where I would be denied the right to protest an abhorrent individual. Say there were a company run by a neo-nazi grandmaster wizard of the KKK that wanted to commit genocide. But hey, those were just his personal beliefs! Would you still be against anyone refusing to use that company's products? Against anyone saying the company shouldn't have hired such a man to lead them?
The critics who called for his job were wrong to do so. Saying a man should be fired for his beliefs was almost as bad as saying that gay people should not be treated as equal citizens with the same rights as straight people.
> Mozilla absolutely, totally and completely caved to the protests.
Prove it. Or if that's no longer required, then NASA absolutely, totally and completely faked the moon landings.
> If they were truly my convictions, I would stand by them and tell the world that I was fired for my beliefs.
That's not the question. The question is - would you think that company that fired you did right by you? If not, then you can understand how people feel Mozilla didn't do right by Eich.
> It would also mean the Mozilla board was truly and utterly incompetent; because this was an extremely predictable result
No it wasn't. A lot of people held view similar to Eich's (including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at certain times, btw) and many donated to Prop 8. If you not aware of it, Prop 8 actuall passed. Which means majority of California voters supported it. Not all of them were target of personal destruction hate campaigns. The hatemongers chose Eich to target, but they could choose somebody else out of 7 million people that voted "yes".
> They already knew of Eich's donation.
If they did, that would be highly unusual and irregular to investigate private life of a person. I would certainly be alarmed if my employer would scrutinize my private donations. WTF they are doing asking how I spend my money?
But what if they did? Certainly a lot of people donate to a lot of causes, and not every one of them is targeted by hate campaigns.
> And anyone with a functioning brain would have realized that this would become a much bigger issue when he was promoted to CEO.
Nope. Name me organizations that CEO's of Fortune 100 companies donated to, without googling. You can't. Because you don't know. Because nobody knows. Because nobody cares, until it becomes target of a campaign. Now you are posing as if you could have predicted it, you could not.
> We do, however, share common ground that nobody should be fired for their personal beliefs
Yet Eich was. That's the
> Say there were a company run by a neo-nazi grandmaster wizard of the KKK
But there wasn't. There was a US Senator who was in the KKK (Robert Byrd) but most his comrades seem to be completely fine with it. Eich wasn't in the KKK and did not intend to commit anything. Why engage in ludicrous assumptions that we all know are false?
> The critics who called for his job were wrong to do so.
And yet they got what they wanted. And Mozilla aided and abetted.
> Prove it.
The proof is in the pudding. Mozilla never did anything to support Eich, it were Mozilla employees who initiated the personal destruction campaign, board was on the record offering him "another role" but never offered to stand up for him, and so on. Of course, I was not a fly on the wall when the talk between Eich and board members happened, so I can't give you the money quote. But I see the gist of the situation to be pretty clear and so do many others.
Consider hypothetical situation: suddenly "Brave" browser (referred to below) becomes popular. Will you renew your personal vendetta against Brendan Eich? Because the reasons you cited still apply.
I will never use Brave, no matter how popular it becomes.
But yes, I have considered the opposite situation. And indeed, it's happened. It has only been 2-3 years since a majority of Americans have supported gay rights. It used to be that people would boycott over anything remotely supporting them. Most sponsors pulled out after Ellen Degeneres announced she was gay.
The thing with free speech is that it always works both ways. If you truly care about it, you always have to defend those that are indefensible. Yet in this case, supporters of Eich seem to think what he said was okay, but what his protestors said was not.
The people who protested had every bit as much of a right to their speech as Eich did to his. I believe Proposition 8 was a failure of government: that the rights of the minority should never be subjected to popular vote (tyranny of the majority.) But Eich was perfectly within his right to spend his money to say something truly abhorrent. And since freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences, so too did the people using Mozilla have a right to voice their displeasure.
Then you're basically saying that the entire board and Eich himself are liars. And I don't believe that's a fair thing to say with zero evidence to the contrary.
Eich was a person that could have made the entire situation disappear in an instant by making a (completely meaningless given their history) matching donation to the HRC, and issuing a short post apologizing for his actions. Sure, many would see right through such a transparent act; but it would completely deflate the opposition in an instant -- guaranteed.
He didn't do so. To this day, he's still completely unapologetic for his actions. As much as I dislike the man, the one thing I cannot fault him for is that he is a man of integrity. I don't see him lying and pretending he voluntarily resigned.
> Then you're basically saying that the entire board and Eich himself are liars.
I see that the board claim he was not asked by the board to resign. You can differentiate I guess between "You see which way the wind is blowing, better do what needs to be done" and "Resign or we'll fire you" but that's really a distinction without a difference and would seamlessly segue into the other state, I expect.
> but it would completely deflate the opposition in an instant
Can you cite an instance of apologizing quelling an outrage mob?
> I see that the board claim he was not asked by the board to resign.
Well, you're free to your own opinions (and conspiracies), but not to your own facts. Preface your statements with, "I believe he was secretly (fired)", and that's fair enough.
But us arguing about it without any evidence is basically Russell's Teapot.
> Can you cite an instance of apologizing quelling an outrage mob?
It would have certainly worked here. From when I was born until 2015, we went from 15% approval to 55% approval for marriage equality. We had several prominent republicans, and even a democratic president change their public views to support marriage equality. Eich had a good 6+ years since his donation, so it wasn't like his mind couldn't have changed during that time. I don't recall anyone on our side ever denouncing someone who announced they 'evolved' on this topic. So yes, I'm extremely confident most people would have put this issue to rest.
However, again, a man of principle shouldn't lie. That covers both lying about a change of heart, as well as lying about resigning instead of having been fired.
I see no reason to believe that what both the board and Eich are claiming is technically false. If you define "fired" to include "you know where this is going, get out now and save some face by resigning" then yes, sure, I believe he was secretly fired.
It's not exactly a common occurrence for there to be backlash against CEOs for holding anti-gay views. I can only name the Mozilla and Chik-Fil-A CEOs, and neither apologized for it.
The best example I can give you is Rob Portman. He was vehemently anti-gay, until his son came out to him as gay. And then suddenly, like Dick Cheney before him, he found his empathy. However, I don't recall any gay rights groups continuing to protest against him after that.
So I'll turn the question back to you: can you name a case where someone announced a change of heart on gay rights and apologized, and the lynch mob kept on them after that?
Hey, weren't you in Ohio the whole time, and not subject to California law in any event? Federal tax forms are not bound by California law. Nor are Ohio tax laws.
I didn't link to that because you didn't answer the topic being debated here.
Would you be willing to go on record and state whether you were forced to resign or not? If you were, then I agree that was wrong, and will stop linking to that FAQ post going forward. Instead, I'll link to your reply and offer my support that Mozilla was in the wrong for forcing you out.
However, if you're going to stay with, "NDAs and none of your business", then I can't work with that. I can only work on what knowledge is available to the public. And all publicly available evidence is that your resignation was entirely voluntary. I hope you'll agree that unless someone actually involved (such as yourself) goes on record, everything else is just baseless speculation. It wouldn't be fair to penalize Mozilla based solely on conjecture.
And yes, I was in Ohio during our 2004 vote to ban marriage equality via state constitutional amendment. I stated that people like you (as in, religious people imposing their views on others through force of law) helped make that happen. Marriage wasn't really on my radar until around 2008. I think it was just seeing California of all places vote against it that really crushed my spirit for a long time. I know empathy is really difficult, but imagine if our positions were reversed and I donated to successfully help prevent you from marrying your wife. How would you think of me? That I didn't live in California is 2008 is no reason I can't object to your actions.
As always, even if we strongly disagree, I appreciate that you're willing to respond and have a discussion with a nobody such as myself, so thank you for that :)
From the linked thread, I wrote "You have no idea why I stepped down" in reply to your "Eich chose to step down due to community pressure" line, which you made up. That "due to" explanation was your interpretation, nothing I ever said or wrote.
Have you heard of the fallacy of the excluded middle? I resigned, I said so at the time and keep saying so, even today on this HN page. This does not exclude other possibilities that are none of your business. "Forced or resigned" is a false dilemma in general. Even if you don't know the specific details, the general point stands.
I think you know this, since you understand oppression. Oppression does not in general remove all agency from the victim. Two things can be true at once: oppressors used force; victim had freedom to move. Note I'm not saying I am a victim, I'm using an analogy to knock down the excluded middle fallacy that I think you put forth. Can we agree on this much?
> your "Eich chose to step down due to community pressure" line, which you made up.
You are correct. That was conjecture. I don't know the actual thoughts in your mind when you stepped down, because you won't tell me.
Right now, the only solid evidence we have is that mozilla.org blog post that you voluntarily stepped down. Unless you will renounce it, then to the public record, it will remain what is believed to be true. And anything else, "you were forced out", "you were fired", "you resigned due to pressure", etc is hearsay.
> This does not exclude other possibilities that are none of your business.
I believe it is the business of the public whether you were given an ultimatum or not. It would greatly influence how many felt toward the senior leadership of Mozilla.
> "Forced or resigned" is a false dilemma in general.
I disagree strongly. There's a world of difference between me choosing to leave my job to protect my company; and my company firing me, making me sign an NDA, and lying and saying I left voluntarily. The former is commendable (if unfortunate) on your part; the latter is absolutely reprehensible on Mozilla's part.
> Oppression does not remove agency from the victim.
It can. There was no serious option for me to move to a country with full marriage equality (the world does not have open borders - even permanently moving to Canada requires hosting by a family member, substantial capital to invest, or an asylum request); and only partial redress (state-level) were I to choose to move to, say, Massachusetts. Which also wasn't much of a possibility as my spouse did not want to leave his family behind in Ohio. But I guess you could say the latter was a matter of prioritizing.
Those ballot initiatives were definitely aimed at removing agency from gay and lesbian couples, that much is for sure.
> Can we agree on this much?
In the general case that the two can be true at once, yes. But I don't see how your resignation can possibly exist in a quantum state where you were both forced to resign and weren't. It can only be one or the other.
I can understand there being subtle hints and allusions that a firing would have been inevitable should you choose not to resign, but unless they were substantiated, they were just that. I'm not going to read between the lines to speculate on what might have happened had you chosen to stay onboard.
I'm dead serious: if you really were forced out but just can't tell me, then you have my sympathy. I never once called for you to be fired. Free speech only works when we all have it. The only thing I did, and stand by, is my own free speech to voice disapproval for your donation. I also stopped using Firefox until you had resigned.
(I do have some thoughts on money not being the same as speech, but that's a whole different issue.)
> I don't see how your resignation can possibly exist in a quantum state where you were both forced to resign and weren't. It can only be one or the other.
There's a whole lot of middle ground between absolutely forced and absolutely not forced. He could have not been absolutely forced (in that the board might not have said "Quit or be fired"), but could have lost sufficient support from the board, other executives, and/or staff that there was no realistic way to meet expectations that the board had set (implicitly or explicitly) so that it seemed likely that the situation was as if an quit-or-be-dumped threat had been made, even if it wasn't. For just one example.
HN is for many things: wasting time, trying to persuade reasonable fellow hackers of the virtues of Blub, practicing rhetoric and dialectic, etc. etc. It's not for you to cross-examine me, though. You are not entitled. Ask Mozilla if you want more info about my exit.
> I disagree strongly.
Please see my edit, adding "in general" before "remove" and "all" before "agency". I made that edit before you replied (but it seems after you cited my earlier text) because I suspected you would turn "must" to "can" on loss of agency. As you did.
Of course oppression can at the limit remove all agency, by killing the victim. Duh! But your move from "must" to "can" dodges the crucial disagreement that we seem to be having, over whether any force always and exclusively overrides a choice like resigning, or and/or other non-exclusive and exclusive alternatives.
It's nonsense to make complex human interactions involving mobs, boycotts, hidden C-suite action, and finally resignation into an either/or in every single case. Some people feel that "the mob" forced me out (whether they disagree or agree with the result). This does not mean those people all believe I was "fired".
To take another example and leave out "Oppression": did Nixon resign? Of course. Did he face force from his opponents in Congress and the press? Yes, obviously -- in the case of Congress, he faced the full force of the U.S. Constitution, up to an impeachment trial and conviction. Both force and choice were operative; no either/or.
> There's a world of difference between me choosing to leave my job to protect my company; and my company firing me, making me sign an NDA, and lying and saying I left voluntarily.
You are doing it again, right here! Use your imagination. Can you not conceive of excluded middles left out by the two alternatives you pose as if mutually exclusive and exhaustive of all possibilities? I think you can. You should, just as a matter of intellectual honesty and rigor, even if I keep mum. Using my silence as justification for your fallacy is a further fallacy.
You're right. And in this case, I wasn't. I responded to someone who said you were fired with an official statement that contradicted it. You joined into the discussion with, "you don't know and I don't have to tell you."
Which is fine! In that case, I will continue to correct anyone who says you were fired by pointing to the only official statement on the matter that says you resigned voluntarily. Is that fair? Surely you can't blame me for not relying on secret information I don't know.
> It's nonsense to make complex human interactions involving mobs, boycotts, hidden C-suite action, and finally resignation into an either/or in every single case.
I'm definitely not making that claim in every case, only in this one case. I agree with your premise in general.
> did Nixon resign? Of course.
It was inevitable that he would have been impeached had he not. There was no indication that Mozilla did anything but stand behind you the entire time.
I do understand the point you're trying to make here. But please understand that I can't hold Mozilla's board in contempt for something without any evidence or even statements on the matter. And you don't want to give them and that's fine. Just, as such, the record stands that you left of your own volition.
> Can you not conceive of excluded middles left out by the two alternatives you pose as if mutually exclusive and exhaustive of all possibilities?
No, I can't imagine a scenario where you were both made to resign, yet Mozilla was not lying when they said you left voluntarily.
I am acutely aware that there was a huge reason for you to, even if I can't speculate that it had anything to do with your actual decision. But the protests and boycotts were a clear elephant in the room.
Like you said with agency, you should have still had it despite the protests. The protestors had zero control over the Mozilla board. Yes, you staying could have damaged the brand more (I doubt it would have done much damage, but that's a separate discussion.)
We're not making progress so let's try this from the other side: we both agree those calling for your firing were in the wrong, and should not have been listened to. I'll even go further and say it was wrong of sites like OK Cupid to use their site as a tool to boycott Mozilla by blocking your browser - as that forced their users into the boycott. But do you agree that the people voicing their displeasure with your donation and deciding not to use Firefox because you were made the CEO had a right to do so?
Discounting the two things we both agree on (calls for firing, websites blocking Mozilla), what would you have wished were handled differently? What else do you feel was unfair?
If secretly Mozilla led you to believe you would be ousted soon without resigning, then that would be on the board, and only the board, yes? And if that information remains secret, then we the public can't hold them accountable for that, can we?
...
And as for me ... it seems we're never going to get past discussing a donation you made eight years ago. So when it inevitably comes up again that you were 'fired for your beliefs', how about this?
I will respond that according to the only official statement from mozilla.org, you voluntarily resigned. I will then link to your discussions with me and state that you claim there are circumstances that are not public, and that people can make up their own mind on whatever that statement means from there. But again, that the only official record refutes their claim.
Would you accept that? It's really not my goal to keep annoying you (or anyone else) here. I just don't want to see conjecture passed off as fact. Especially not on HN.
Do you see how you used the "He was fired!" refutation (which I refute all the time by saying I resigned) as carte blanche to go make unjustified assertions, inaccurate and incomplete paraphrases, and three other things?
> I can't hold Mozilla's board in contempt
Who asked you to hold anyone in contempt? Are you the judge now? And note the either/or again: either me, or them. No third or fourth alternative?
Here are some more unjustified assertions or questions implying facts not in evidence that you've made:
* "The protestors had zero control over the Mozilla board."
* "...had a right to do so?" (totally irrelevant and I never said otherwise; when did you stop beating your spouse?)
* "... we both agree on ...." (we haven't agreed on those and they're irrelevant again)
* "What else do you feel was unfair?" (I never said "unfair", I'm here to object to you Making Stuff Up)
Do you see what I mean? You're all over the map with unrelated and unjustified claims and questions implying I said things I never said.
Just consider your "He could have stayed if he wanted to." Why'd you write that? I don't mean what you imagined or guessed or inferred predicated on assumptions or beliefs and nothing else. I mean what needs did it serve to say something you can't possibly know, as if it were an incontrovertible fact.
> One example: "He could have stayed if he wanted to." You don't know that and can't really know it, so stop saying it.
As I keep saying, the only publicly available evidence is that your resignation was voluntary. Voluntary implies optional. Optional implies you could stay. There's no leap of logic here.
Yes, there could be behind-the-scenes NDAs and private events that meant you couldn't have. But unless you provide any shred of evidence, then I can't go on those.
Imagine this like a court of law. Your vague hints of knowledge I am not privy to would be inadmissable evidence. Because of course it would be.
> (which I refute all the time by saying I resigned)
Well there you go! There's our answer. You weren't fired, you resigned. Right from the man himself :D
> Who asked you to hold anyone in contempt?
Who asked you who could get married and who couldn't?
I have the right to hold any opinion I want about anyone. It's just an opinion; it has no authority. People in this thread are mad at Mozilla, claiming they fired you. If that is true, I want to join them in their anger. But I want evidence first.
> No third or fourth alternative?
Sorry, I'm not trying to be obtuse. I can't think of a third or fourth alternative. I'm not the brightest bulb out there, but I like to think I'm reasonably capable of imagining multiple possible scenarios. But I've got nothing here.
> "The protestors had zero control over the Mozilla board."
Come on, now you're just messing with me. Nobody here believes people on the internet shouting at you had the power to force Mozilla's board to act the way they wanted. It's a company, not an elected body. You yourself made that argument about oppression and agency. They may not have liked their options, but nobody held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to fire you. Even if keeping you meant burning the whole company to the ground, they still had full autonomy to make their own choice.
Or are you going to go reductio ad absurdum and tell me that I don't (and can't) know if any protestors held a gun to your board members' heads? :P
The rest ... fair enough. It seems I need to preface everything with "it's my reasonable assumption that ..." when speaking with you ;)
> Just consider your "He could have stayed if he wanted to." Why'd you write that?
If your resignation was voluntary, that implies you could have stayed. If you couldn't, it would thus not be voluntary. Because that is what the word voluntary means. It implies you made a choice. If you were saying you chose to resign instead of being fired, then you didn't make a choice, you were fired. Calling that a voluntary resignation is bullshit.
> I mean what needs did it serve to say something you can't possibly know, as if it were an incontrovertible fact.
Our basic communication breakdown here is that I am treating fact as "what's in the public record"; and you are treating fact as "you were actually there for it." Yours is obviously superior. But you won't share the latter with me, again which is fine! But if you don't do so, then don't blame me for treating the former as fact. It's no different than the way a court of law would treat it. I'm not being unreasonable here. I can't read the tea leaves and divine what really happened, nor can anyone else. That doesn't mean we can't ever talk about it. There are lots of unknowns in the world, and I am following the way reasonable people discuss and interpret those things as best they can.
You are going in circles. I'm cutting it off right here:
> the only publicly available evidence is that your resignation was voluntary. Voluntary implies optional. Optional implies you could stay. There's no leap of logic here.
You're wrong: "voluntary" does not imply "optional" in any scenario where the possible outcomes are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive. It's as simple as that. The old saw about the sergeant calling for volunteers and saying if you don't put your hand up, then you'll be "volunteered", comes to mind.
> Well there you go! There's our answer. You weren't fired, you resigned. Right from the man himself :D
I suggest you write less and read more. I've said I resigned since I in fact did resign on 3 April 2014, on my blog, in a statement to Mozilla employees, and on HN every N months, including on this very HN page today. If you didn't read any of those statements, then you simply weren't paying attention. If you read and ignored, bad on you. Either way, you've used up my patience, and probably many others'.
My sincere thanks for your patience. I'm sorry we couldn't reach an understanding, but I do appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me today.
It's truly not my intention to misrepresent what happened nor your own words. But I honestly can't form a definitive answer based on what you've been willing to say. Nor do I feel this is an issue that can just be ignored.
Several of your points did reach me: I will try to take your advice and be more explicit in future replies on this topic that I make, and I'll certainly link to your own comments here if I do. But I'm really hoping this situation will stop coming up in every other Mozilla story on HN, so that I won't have to.
This is not what you asked, though. You asked if something were voluntary (and assumed optional meaning disjoint outcomes for the given action). You used "had zero control". Again, the range of possibilities is bigger than "zero control" vs. "gun to head".
Enough with the false dilemmas, already!
If you are serious about talking 1:1, DM me on Twitter.
I feel like you're really looking for any faults in my expressions. Yes, my language is a bit overly embellished and colorful. But I've been hoping you'd at least get the idea I was trying to convey each time. It appears to me that I'm being a lot more black-and-white than you are in this case -- but again, that's me trying to characterize your position here.
As for Twitter, I think you can only DM people that follow you. And I definitely wouldn't want to inflict that upon you :P
I appreciate the offer, though. So, let me ask some trusted colleages to review this public chat to give a second opinion on my failings here. It'll give you a well-deserved break in the meantime, and time for me to reflect.
If something interesting comes of that, I'll try to draw a final conclusion and perhaps I'll send you a standard Twitter message to that for your thoughts, if you have time and don't mind.
Two relatively minor nit picks about what you've said:
1. The company is Mozilla, not Firefox
2. They did not fire Eich, he stepped down amid the controversy and left to avoid any more conflict
Now, while I can understand not being happy that they (Mozilla) did not step out in defense of their choice of Eich, I think it's a tad duplicitous to say they fired him.
