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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

> Brendan Eich was not fired. ... He came under pressure to resign and he did.

So in other words, he was told if he didn't resign he'd be fired. Let's not play games, he wasn't going to survive that episode.

> The Mozilla Board that appointed him knew about his donation

I seriously doubt that, unless checking a person's political donations is a standard course of action Mozilla takes -- which would open a major can of worms (you didn't promote me because I donated to Trump). The whole episode reeked of someone digging around and raising a stink shortly after he made a highly visible move -- otherwise, why did no one in the "community" take issue with his donation in the several years prior?

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Eich had an oppertunity, in that moment, to speak of a change of heart. That change of heart regarding same sex marriage is one that millions underwent in a very short period of time. Instead, he said this:

“Eich also stressed that Firefox worked globally, including in countries like Indonesia with “different opinions”, and 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’.

It is most certainly standard to check the political donations, statements, and affiliations for the person you are promoting to CEO. This is not a mere promotion from SDE; this is the face of the company, and a company that specifically touts inclusion as a core tenant.

> So in other words, he was told if he didn't resign he'd be fired.

External pressure, not internal.

> I seriously doubt that, unless checking a person's political donations is a standard course of action Mozilla takes

No need to do an investigation, it had been raised by people who were upset by the action years earlier.

> otherwise, why did no one in the "community" take issue with his donation in the several years prior?

They did, years earlier.

You could've found this out yourself, but instead you decided to make trouble here instead. It's best to stick to topics you understand.

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