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Comment by pseudalopex | Hacker News Reader

Eich's career at Mozilla ended when he resigned as CEO and declined to remain as CTO. He resigned because he let a predictable PR problem get away from him and couldn't effectively lead. He had marginal support to begin with; three board members resigned when he was appointed for reasons that had nothing to do with his political activities.

Someone somewhere probably got fired for donating to Trump. Someone somewhere probably got fired for donating to Clinton. Eich donated to curtail civil rights and kept his job as CTO until he gave it up.

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Since you weren't on the board or privy to details about my time as CEO, what you are doing in your first paragraph is simply lying.

On board resignations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10654651

On "curtail civil rights" canard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721928

I stand corrected on the resignations. You know that's how the Wall Street Journal reported it, so accusing me of lying is out of line, but I appreciate you correcting the record.

"Curtail civil rights" is exactly right, though. Prop 8 didn't nullify existing marriages, but it did prevent new ones. Whatever philosophical reasons you had for supporting the measure, its language and effect were specific.

Lying is when you disparage someone by asserting as facts, without any speculative words such as "might have", your negative guesswork that you can't possibly know to be a true and complete account, due to non-disclosure. I'll talk about the Mozilla situation in 2014 later, if I ever do; I'm not out to make trouble right now for a project and org that I co-founded.

"Civil rights", if the phrase meant anything at stake in 2008, meant positive rights under state law that were protected by CA's domestic partnership section of its family law code, which an earlier generation of allies (including me) had supported. You could reframe now (post-Obergefell) in federal civil rights terms, but that tells a revisionist account of the history. Back in 2008, state-guaranteed rights were not the issue in front of the citizens of California, and federal bad law (DOMA) was beyond state power to affect.

Remember Obama was also at that time in favor (he said; maybe he was strategically lying but we don't know) of the conjugal definition of marriage.

Yes, I know people find Obama's position then defective and wrong, and some (few) even said so at the time. But I don't see anyone going around arguing that Obama thereby curtailed civil rights, since he supported civil unions or domestic partnerships. If he got off the hook for the "curtailing civil rights" charge by evolving many years later, then what does the phrase mean? It's not a historically or legally accurate description. It's just a rhetorical club to beat up enemies and spare friends.

I never claimed to have inside knowledge. People don't usually attach "might have" to news reports from reputable sources. If I remember correctly, the story was that the dissenters wanted someone with mobile experience, which wouldn't reflect negatively on you even if it had been true. Still, it must be frustrating to see misinformation keep circulating years after the fact. All I can do is apologize for an honest mistake.

"Curtailing civil rights" means simply this: marrying someone of the same sex was legal in California, and then it wasn't. A right previously recognized was taken away. It doesn't matter if you disagree with how that right was recognized. It doesn't matter that domestic partnerships provided most of the same benefits within California as marriage. Most isn't all. Even if those deficiencies had been repaired, "separate but equal" isn't equal.

Obama "got off the hook" because he opposed writing his claimed personal beliefs into law. Even in 2008, he spoke against Prop 8 and advocated repealing DOMA. You aren't my enemy, and he isn't my friend; he just had a better position on this issue.

You wrote "declined to remain as CTO." That assertion requires inside knowledge. Note Andreas Gal was made CTO within two months of my leaving. There was a reorg that I announced (which is public info), and a CTO plan which is now clear enough.

I realize it's easy to speculate unintentionally but I try to draw a bright line around things like speaking for someone else, saying they "declined" an offer where you weren't involved and didn't actually see any offering or declining.

In the link I sent about board resignations (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10654651), I wrote "Alistair Barr of the WSJ was working on a story about Mozilla being in trouble". Barr was getting the "need CEO with mobile experience" line from someone, possibly an ex-executive, even a (soon-to-be-ex) board member. A number of people thought it might be Gary Kovacs, but no one knew for sure.

For my part regarding getting the appointment, I can only say that "mobile experience" line did not come up. Doing Firefox OS (for all its problems) did get us a lot of mobile experience and good partner contacts. I'm engaging with some of those contacts at Brave, so I think the ding from whomever leaked to Barr was not material re: me, then or now.

On where law comes from, why CA voters can override the CA supreme court, see "status quo" on at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721928.

Obama had no skin in the game in California, but he did say (to Rick Warren in public) that he supported the conjugal definition of marriage. He did not explain how he squared this with being against Prop 8, as far as I know (references welcome). It sure looks like strategic lying to me, and nothing against Obama -- I voted for him in the 2008 CA primary. Politians do this kind of inconsistent fence-sitting all the time.

Thanks for writing back.

I understand your opposition to Eich's donation, but I think that what you said strengthens my point rather than weakens it; my only point was that most tech employees would see an Eich-like quiet, private donation to Trump as a "predictable PR problem that might get away from them and prevent them from effectively leading", and that as a result they would avoid creating such a "PR problem", and therefore we cannot learn much about support for Trump in tech circles by looking at donations.

As to someone somewhere... Show me someone, somewhere on HN attacked by thousands of commenters for supporting some liberal cause in the US the way Eich was attacked by thousands of commenters (who keep mentioning it every time say Brave is brought up) for supporting a conservative cause. (I'm not saying you SHOULD be able to find this example, whatever "should" means; I'm only saying that you CAN'T, and that "someone somewhere" doesn't cut both ways the way you implied. If it were that symmetrical, then it would have invalidated my point.)

My only point is that Eich doesn't demonstrate your point. It took four years for people to notice the donation, and when they did, nothing of consequence happened. Two years later, he got promoted. The donation only became an issue after he was named CEO.

Mozilla is a prominent company and puts unusual emphasis on its social mission. The CEO is the public face of a company and ultimately responsible for ensuring that workers are treated fairly. A donation for a specific issue says something a donation to a candidate doesn't. And Eich/Mozilla handled the situation badly. (You misquoted me, by the way.)

I see Eich mentioned as a martyr on HN more often than I see a word against him. I threw in "someone somewhere" because we actually agree that fear of retribution can keep people from donating to political campaigns. I just don't think Eich is a good example.

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