Comment by jasonlotito | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonlotito | Hacker News Reader

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> So the leader has to go because employees can't separate work life from home life?

Yeah, and bad companies. But a leader has to lead. And it wasn't just employees having issues. The CEO is the face of the company, and if they can't lead either employees nor can they effectively be the face of the company, they have to go.

> Yes, because his opinion on gay marriage is irrelevant to his work as a CEO, just as my activities on the weekend should have no bearing on my job.

Your activities don't involve being a leader or being the face of the company. If you can't do that, you can't do your job as CEO. This happens all the time. See Equifax as the latest example. The CEO wasn't personally responsible for the security issue. But he was the leader, and his priorities sets the companies priorities. He leads, and his failure in leadership is what fundamentally failed the company.

If you think a CEO and a junior level employee have the same responsibilities and are graded on the same metrics, you are sorely mistaken.

> The CEO is the face of the company, and if they can't lead either employees nor can they effectively be the face of the company, they have to go.

And yet no one has explained why a guy holding particular political views can not effectively be the face of the company. If one does believes in gay marriage rights, can they effectively be the face of the company? Clearly, many people oppose that view, so let's oust every CEO out there who donated to gay rights campaigns.

What differentiates between these two CEOs with opposing views on gay rights in this respect is only how much public outrage there is about their biography. Somehow, people holding left views tend to be much louder than people holding right views. Which, without a doubt, has a lot to do with leftist bias in the mass media. So, taking your statement to its logical conclusion, what you are suggesting is we give up any sense of fairness and work ethic and bow to our mass media overlords because they have the microphone.

> And yet no one has explained why a guy holding particular political views can not effectively be the face of the company.

I'm pretty sure they have, many times, but you presumably don't agree - which is perfectly fine but don't say it's not been explained!

(To recap: someone with exclusionary views, donating money to promote and enforce those exclusionary views, cannot effectively be head of a company specifically promoting inclusionary views.)

You raise an interesting objection. Some questions in this regard:

1) What does inclusivity have to do with Mozilla's core business, namely open-source Internet software?

2) Can any organization declare inclusivity as one of its core values and start enforcing it by firing every person in position of power who holds an exclusionary view on any subject? By the way, there are more people in positions of power than just the CEO. Every person in the corporate hierarchy, except perhaps the lowest, holds power over other people. The exact same argument you make about the CEO can be made about a VP, a CTO or a teamleader. They all represent their group in front of everyone else and they are all looked up to by their inferiors.

3) What is an exclusionary view? Is it one advocating that people in certain category deserve less than in another category? But by that logic, you hold an exclusionary view: after all, you support the idea that people with particular views should not occupy positions of power.

4) Why is it a good idea for an organization to declare holding exclusionary opinions a punishable offense? I can tell you why it is a bad idea. Quoting an excellent comment [1] below, "there's something wrong with injecting ideology into everything, that is, dividing everything in the world into what supports your ideology and what doesn't, making all judgments based on it, and shunning all who don't share your ideology. All must prove their purity and loyalty or be excommunicated. It's a very dangerous approach, and a quick glance at history books will tell you what's at the end of this path."

The life is a complex, non-binary (in fact, multidimensional) thing, and we all err in some regard, including yourself. You don't want to be discriminated based on your opinions, unless you overstep the boundaries of law.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15398460

> What does inclusivity have to do with Mozilla's core business

Irrelevant - it's a stated organisational value. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Diversity_and_Inclusion_Strategy

> Can any organization declare inclusivity as one of its core values

Yep.

> and start enforcing it by firing every person in position of power who holds an exclusionary view on any subject?

In the US, probably, although it may depend on which state and precisely which exclusionary views are in play. In the UK, maybe, depending on what those exclusionary views are.

> But by that logic, you hold an exclusionary view

I do, yes. Well done! I hold many exclusionary views but they are all targeted at people who people who want to exclude or hurt others for what I consider bullshit reasons.

> "All must prove their purity and loyalty or be excommunicated."

Nonsense.

> You don't want to be discriminated based on your opinions

I am 100% behind discriminating against people who hold opinions that another class of person is lesser than them.

Not everyone who opposes gay marriage thinks of gays as lesser than them. Some oppose it for religious reasons, for example. Also, what about views on other exclusionary policies? Wherever you live, I'm sure many people in your country think that no foreigners have an inherent right to gain citizenship and residence in your country. Perhaps even you feel that way. This is an exclusionary view and therefore should be punished by prohibiting those people from holding positions of power... right?

Besides, you are still missing the main point. Discriminating against people for their opinions is nonconstructive - by excluding them from dialog, oppressing them in daily lives and proudly putting your intolerance to their views on display, you just make them angry and more entrenched. That kind of demonization might feel really nice (when you're on the giving end of the stick), but it works against liberal values in the long run. Where do you think Trump and Brexit came from?

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