As much as I disagreed with Brebdan Eich's political positions, I thought it was wrong that he was pushed out of Mozilla because of them. HN is not a single voice but my reading of it at the time was that, contrary to my position, most people thought it was the right thing to do.
> however if your core beliefs are out of line with a companies beliefs then it just might make you a bad FIT for the company. Not about your opinion, but about you fit with a group of people who's opinion and beliefs are opposite.
So I can veil and justify my prejudice in a company mission statement? This is busybody-ism run amok. This is institutionalized busybody thinking. We really need some collective soul-searching because great people are being destroyed.
How about this, let's stop ruining people for what's going on between their ears. Everyone's got stupid ideas and ugly and complicated thoughts. Get over yourselves, thought police!
Employers: hire people for what they can do for you, pay them fairly, and let them live the rest of their dumb lives in peace. If employees are being assholes in the workplace, discipline and/or fire them. If employees are tarnishing your brand by doing things disagreeable to you
A) publicly, **AND**
B) in your brand's name
Of course, the larger problem is the rest of the culture. There are groups who will retaliate against individuals by naming them and trying to link them to the brand of their employer. It puts the employer in an impossible bind. Brendan Eich and Mozilla spring to mind as a particularly memorable example of this.
It's a form of cultural terrorism, where one's private ideas can get them killed. The only solution, as distasteful as it sounds to many, is to not let the terrorists win. Mozilla should have kept Eich on, just to spite the SJW's and prevent them from souring civil discourse.
49 people were massacred this year for going to a gay nightclub, but Eich was a victim of terrorism because he was fired? What are you smoking?
Brendan Eich contributed to the Prop 8[1] traditional marriage campaign that the California electorate voted on. It was a constitutional amendment and it passed which, in 2008, was simply stunning.
In any case, Eich was shamed retroactively for his contribution. The hate and vitriol I read directed at the man at the time was incredible. If I were him, I would have been more in fear for my life and my family's, much less holding on to my CEO position. I don't know Brendan except hearing heard him speak a bit on youtube on technical topics, maybe he's a braver soul than I am IRL.
In any case, "the use of violence or threats of violence in order to coerce, especially for political purposes" is the #1 definition of 'terrorism', which describes what happened with Eich pretty well. Fear is as powerful a weapon of terrorists as bullets or jet planes or pressure cookers are. Is this definition of terrorism and its implications well understood by you, and are you simply resistant to empathizing with someone with different politics than yours? That's all well and good until it's your ox that gets gored.
Eich wasn't fired, at least not publicly. He stepped down because the cowards/traitors on the board let him dangle with no support.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008...
Yeah. He was given a taste of his own medicine with regard to what it feels like to be victimized.
Edit: I have upvoted gaur because their minority viewpoint needs to be fully heard to be understood.
On the facts, Mozilla and I both say I resigned, and Mozilla's board members said at the time that they wanted me to stay.
But in fantasizing that I was fired, gaur's moralistic and judgmental language exhibits the usual signs that Jonathan Haidt has detailed in "The Righteous Mind": a casting out of the other as beyond redemption and justly punished, without the ability to model said other or address their point of view.
(Also without ever adverting to the bad "purging" precedent he's endorsing, which global Trumpism can and will exploit by reversing his right-makes-might-makes-right circular argument. The shoe may soon be on the other foot even here in the USA, at least in large regions; it definitely never left the first foot in places like Saudi Arabia.)
Dishonesty and self-pity are not worth hearing or studying -- we have enough of them already.
Gaur expresses or implies falsehoods about California law, but I've addressed those elsewhere on HN and won't repeat here. Links:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721928
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721891
Of course, you're right on, and that level of injustice he lusts for invites a cruel backlash. Your ominous parenthetical sidebar is not lost on me, and we may be heading to ugly places under Trump.
I am glad to hear you speak well of the Mozilla board. I know you all were put in an awful bind, and you did the most honorable thing you could.
Take care, I pray for you and for the country.
Thanks for your other words & thoughts.
I hope you took good notes during those times and write your memoirs someday. What was it like to become a public figure after having such an impact on our industry? And then, I'm convinced you were just at the wrong place career-wise at the wrong time, what was it like to be a public figure caught up in a media firestorm? That's a story I'd like to read someday.
Also, what are you going to do next, if you're in a sharing mood?
I've been bummed not to have Privacy Badger on my Android Firefox. I will give Brave a tumble, thanks!
Why work at a Christian company if you find their beliefs oppressive?
I say this as someone who thinks there is a thin line (a birth canal) between infanticide and a legal abortion.
And there's always the option of working at common ground. Instead of picking a point of contention, serve at a food bank. Nobody objects to those.
For example, the mandatory volunteer time may not have offended any principles and come with higher pay.