Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Resigns as CEO, Leaves Foundation Board


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Mozilla Co-Founder Brendan Eich Resigns as CEO, Leaves Foundation Board

 

Brendan Eich, the well-known techie who has gotten swept up in a controversy about his support of California?s anti-gay marriage law Proposition 8, is resigning as CEO of for-profit Mozilla Corporation and also from the board of the nonprofit foundation which wholly owns it.

 

Mozilla confirmed the change in a blog post.

 

?Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn?t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it?s because we haven?t stayed true to ourselves,? read the post, in part. ?We didn?t act like you?d expect Mozilla to act. We didn?t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We?re sorry. We must do better.?

 

In several interviews this week, Eich had insisted that he would not step down from the job he was only recently appointed to, due to the intense backlash over a $1,000 donation he made in 2008 in support of the ballot measure to ban gay marriage.

 

?So I don?t want to talk about my personal beliefs because I kept them out of Mozilla all these 15 years we?ve been going,? he said to the Guardian, for example, yesterday. ?I don?t believe they?re relevant.?

 

Not so, of course. In an interview this morning, Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker said that Eich?s ability to lead the company that makes the Firefox Web browser had been badly damaged by the continued scrutiny over the hot-button issue, which had actually been known since 2012 inside the Mozilla community.

 

?It?s clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,? said Baker, who added that she would not and could not speak for Eich. ?The ability to lead ? particularly for the CEO ? is fundamental to the role and that is not possible here.?

 

She said that Eich ? who created the JavaScript programming language, among other prominent computing achievements ? had not been forced to resign by her or others on its board, which includes prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Reid Hoffman.

 

?I think there has been pressure from all sides, of course, but this is Brendan?s decision,? Baker said. ?Given the circumstances, this is not surprising.?

 

Indeed, those circumstances included vocal protests on Twitter by Mozilla staffers and a call by the OkCupid dating site to not use Firefox.

 

The controversy has been a difficult one for Mozilla, which could be described as more of a movement than a tech company and which has a very vocal community around it.

 

It has also resulted in scrutiny of its governance, in which Baker and also Eich ? who have worked together for 15 years since founding Mozilla on deeply held beliefs over the development of an open Internet ? played a big part.

 

In addition, three of Mozilla Corporation?s board members ? former Mozilla CEO and current Greylock Partners VC John Lilly, former Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs and well-known tech exec Ellen Siminoff ? have recently resigned.

 

But each of their departures seems to have been only tangentially related to Eich?s appointment ? though none of them supported his selection as CEO, according to numerous sources, for other reasons ? and not to the controversy over Prop 8.

Baker said that she had not known about Eich?s views on gay marriage throughout most of their working relationship, until the donation came to light last year.

 

?That was shocking to me, because I never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from him that was not in line with Mozilla?s values of inclusiveness,? she said, noting that there was a long and public community process about what to do about it in which Eich, then CTO, participated. ?But I overestimated that experience.?

 

Baker ? who became emotional at one point during the interview ? noted that she was ?doing a fair amount of self-reflection and I am wondering how did I miss it that this would matter more when he was the CEO.?

 

Preserving Mozilla?s integrity was paramount, she said, especially since ?we are heading into a period of global mass surveillance and the role of those fighting against will be more important than ever.?

 

She added: ?This is hard since Brendan is a founder and has contributed so much here. But making sure others continue to join and support Mozilla?s efforts is even more important.?

 

Baker said there was not another leading candidate for the CEO role as yet, although Mozilla had been conducting an extensive search using Spencer Stuart before the Eich selection, which also included another internal candidate, Jay Sullivan.

 

?There are certainly very talented people we have talked to, so we are not at ground zero by any means,? she said. ?But we are now in the middle of what is clearly a crisis, and this had to happen.?

 

A crisis indeed, not helped much by a series of Eich interviews this week, in which he declined to apologize and used what can only be described as pretzel logic about how a clearly tolerant community like Mozilla should also support what many now consider intolerant beliefs.

 

Eich told the Guardian, for example: ?So far we?ve been able to bring people together of diverse beliefs including on things like marriage equality. We couldn?t have done this, we couldn?t have done Firefox One. I would?ve been excluded, someone else would?ve been excluded because of me ? I wouldn?t have done that personally, they?d have just left. So imagine a world without Firefox: not good.?

 

He also dragged in a truly bizarre point about people in Indonesia not liking gays marrying to justify his continued leadership. He noted to the newspaper that LGBT marriage was ?not considered universal human rights yet, and maybe they will be, but that?s in the future, right now we?re in a world where we have to be global to have effect.?

 

(Hey Brendan, does that mean we need to just say bygones about some of the virulent anti-women sentiments and laws in some countries, since it?s a Firefox world after all? No, I did not think so.)

 

?I think I?m the best person for the job and I?m doing the job,? Eich insisted to the Guardian.

 

Throughout the interviews, it was not hard to get the sense that Eich really wanted to stick strongly by his views about gay marriage, which run counter to much of the tech industry and, increasingly, the general population in the U.S. For example, he repeatedly declined to answer when asked if he would donate to a similar initiative today.

 

Instead, he tried to unsuccessfully hedge those sentiments and, perhaps more importantly, did not seem to understand that he might have to pay the inevitable price for having them.

 

Thus, something had to give ? and it did.

 

When asked about worries that the continuing controversy about Eich would have had broader impact, such as negotiations to renew a longtime lucrative contract with Google ? which has been a high-profile supporter of gay rights ? Baker said that while making this move aligned with that, it was not a factor in Eich?s departure.

 

?This is more important than business relationships,? she said.

 

Source: re/code

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I am in two minds about this. I understand that his support of Prop8 goes against the heart of what Mozilla stands for however he is entitled to his own opinion. I guess this was going to be the result though he wasn't going to survive in the long term with that hanging over him.

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I am in two minds about this. I understand that his support of Prop8 goes against the heart of what Mozilla stands for however he is entitled to his own opinion. I guess this was going to be the result though he wasn't going to survive in the long term with that hanging over him.

He is, but when your name is associated with a popular company, you have to be careful about what opinions you want known to the public.  

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Also a factor I'm sure is that there are more GLBT folks involved in tech that many other fields, as can be seen by how all the top tech companies support equal rights and the number of others that left as a result of his position.

 

Having said that, this really got blown out of proportion.  I don't think he had to quit but I certainly wouldn't have worked for Mozilla with him in charge.

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 I don't think he had to quit but I certainly wouldn't have worked for Mozilla with him in charge.

 

That's because you've made the mistake of thinking people care about quality, expertise or skill or how losing those would impact the product, company or organization. Those have no meaning to these people, their only interest is raving about their <insert agenda here> until they can smoke someone out.

 

Which is why I've personally started thinking about just turning off the net, not watching telly and in general ignoring all (social) media completely.

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He is, but when your name is associated with a popular company, you have to be careful about what opinions you want known to the public.  

I think what's really sad is that the fake outrage came after he became CEO. He was already an incredibly influential person at the company (being CTO), he even co-founded it. No one had a problem until he was CEO though? Fake outrage is fake.

 

If there had been that kind of outrage prior to him being CEO, I wouldn't say anything, but as far as I can tell, no one cared until a month ago. It is all bullcrap!

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however he is entitled to his own opinion.

 

Yes he is as an individual.

 

As the head of a company officially he is not. A CEO represent a company. He can't say or do whatever he wants publicly. As long as it stays private there's no problem but as soon as consumers learn about it if it doesn't go along the company line then the board might want to replace you eventually so probably better to quit before it happens.

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The day I first read about this issue I felt this result was inevitable. Also that bit about the board not forcing him to resign, didn't half of them resign themselves because they wanted a guy with more mobile experience and an extensive background in the mobile industry given that's their new focus apparently? So how would that not result in immense pressure on him thus forcing him to resign as well?

 

Ultimately this is a royal mess for Mozilla and IMO they need to rethink their strategy and future areas of focus too while they're looking for yet another CEO.

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Yes and the public eye is shunning him for a decision he made as an individual, 8 years ago.

 

Given his comment on people in Indonesia and "Throughout the interviews, it was not hard to get the sense that Eich really wanted to stick strongly by his views" it doesn't sound as if it's something he's stopped believing in or supporting. As to whether it should have mattered, that's for each individual to decide for themselves.

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The Hounding Of A Heretic

 

The guy who had the gall to express his First Amendment rights and favor Prop 8 in California by donating $1,000 has just been scalped by some gay activists. After an OKCupid decision to boycott Mozilla, the recently appointed Brendan Eich just resigned under pressure:

 

In a post at Mozilla?s official blog, executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker confirmed the news with an unequivocal apology on the company?s behalf. ?Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn?t live up to it,? Baker wrote. ?We didn?t act like you?d expect Mozilla to act. We didn?t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We?re sorry. We must do better.?

 

The action comes days after dating site OKCupid became the most vocal opponent of Eich?s hiring. Mozilla offered repeated statements about LGBT inclusivity within the company over the past two weeks, but those never came with a specific response from Eich about his thousands of dollars of donations in support of Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in the state.

 

Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me ? as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today ? hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else ? then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.

 

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-eich/

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People always seem to think free speech lets them say whatever they want, and that there shouldn't be any repercussions to it, which is just plain wrong (And funnily enough, if that was the case then the people with an issue wouldn't have free speech). He can say whatever he wants about gay people, but he's not exempt from criticism about it.

I think what's really sad is that the fake outrage came after he became CEO. He was already an incredibly influential person at the company (being CTO), he even co-founded it. No one had a problem until he was CEO though? Fake outrage is fake.

 

If there had been that kind of outrage prior to him being CEO, I wouldn't say anything, but as far as I can tell, no one cared until a month ago. It is all bullcrap!

Well yes, people didn't have a problem with him being the CEO until he was the CEO, but people had a problem with the donation ever since it was first revealed.

Another issue for people is that he never explained it, he just tried hand waving it away.

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I hope the LGBT bigots are happy now, they made him quite over an opinion 6 years ago that is 1000% unrelated to his work

 

And yes they are bigots, they will not allow anyone to have a differing opinion from theirs 

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I think what's really sad is that the fake outrage came after he became CEO. He was already an incredibly influential person at the company (being CTO), he even co-founded it. No one had a problem until he was CEO though? Fake outrage is fake.

 

If there had been that kind of outrage prior to him being CEO, I wouldn't say anything, but as far as I can tell, no one cared until a month ago. It is all bullcrap!

 

The whole thing was a ridiculously contrived witch hunt and I'm saddened that he's let these bigoted a-holes force him out.

 

And yes, the ARE bigots. They have no tolerance for another person's beliefs; the very definition of bigotry.  Sure, he donated a paltry $1000 to an unpopular political cause 6 years ago, so what? That has sod all to do with his ability to run Mozilla and I doubt that $1000 even managed to pay for a round of leaflets.

 

What's just as bad in this, is the hypocrisy of places like that dating site. They put up a page asking people not to use Firefox; something he was only peripherally involved in as a co-founder of Mozilla. Yet most of the coding for their entire site is in javascript, which he directly created, and they didn't even attempt to stop using it, did they?

 

Hypocrites.

 

Either stand by what you believe in, or shut your mouth. Don't go telling others what to do if you're not willing to do it yourself.

Yes he is as an individual.

 

As the head of a company officially he is not. A CEO represent a company. He can't say or do whatever he wants publicly. As long as it stays private there's no problem but as soon as consumers learn about it if it doesn't go along the company line then the board might want to replace you eventually so probably better to quit before it happens.

 

He did it SIX YEARS ago. Long before he was named CEO.

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People always seem to think free speech lets them say whatever they want, and that there shouldn't be any repercussions to it, which is just plain wrong (And funnily enough, if that was the case then the people with an issue wouldn't have free speech). He can say whatever he wants about gay people, but he's not exempt from criticism about it.

 

This went way beyond criticism.  It was a witch hunt.

 

Well yes, people didn't have a problem with him being the CEO until he was the CEO, but people had a problem with the donation ever since it was first revealed.

Another issue for people is that he never explained it, he just tried hand waving it away.

 
 
I don't recall people complaining like this before he was names CEO, and he shouldn't have to explain something he chose to do as an individual, years and years ago.
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Nah, people were upset years ago when it originally came out, the only reason it when nowhere was because he was only the CTO back then, wasn't the public face.

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Nah, people were upset years ago when it originally came out, the only reason it when nowhere was because he was only the CTO back then, wasn't the public face.

 

Did they try to verbally lynch the various politicians who supported prop 8, such as Senator John McCain and Newt Gingrich?  Or maybe Mitt Romney who donated $10k to the prop 8 campaign?

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