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Comment by cannonedhamster | Hacker News Reader

Political views only matter when your company markets itself on values. Oracle and Google aren't about freedom, Mozilla is, GNU/linux is. When you want to be the rudder for a company based on values your background needs to be unassailable, in other words, boring. You can't be boring when you take an active role in a cause that is directly against your employees.

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Which is fine but the parent comment was trying to say he wasn't fired for his views. He was clearly fired for his political views.

Yes I must not have made my point. His political views matter only because the company is based upon values such as openness and inclusiveness. As the one running the ship his political views would have been antithetical to the company mission based on his current actions, which is why the employees revolted.

Fake news. Employees didn’t revolt - it looks as if you may be referring to six Mozilla Foundation employees who tweeted. They worked for a different organization. They almost all left soon after I did anyway.

You're obviously closer to the issue than myself and I'm truly glad you moved on to create something new and different with Brave. I didn't follow the issue entirely closely, but it seems that there were quite a few more than six people in the company that were upset about your monetary contributions. Realistically, you have to know that saying it was just six people that were upset about your monetary contribution is hyperbole.

My comment doesn't just pertain to you nor did I really dig into the merits of your situation, but it does serve as a valid test case that even someone with your obvious and deep technical skills requires more than just those skills to be in alignment with what the company needs from a leader.

Near as I can tell, there were employees unhappy but not about to quit, some of whom I met and talked with before I left. And when I left there were many unhappy employees, of various backgrounds. I know because a large number sent me hand-written notes (very much appreciated).

To this day you can find people angry on both "sides" of the fake-news version of what happened. It constitutes an open wound for Mozilla which people salt and pick at over more recent or ongoing PR mistakes. That's a shame, because the truth is far removed from the cover story. I'll get to it as a memoirist, if ever, only years from now.

Truly, thanks for sharing this. I can't imagine how much anxiety and stress the situation created, and I'm quite sure that you had quite a few people that truly enjoyed and respected your leadership. I think your memoir would definitely find an audience. Best of luck to you in your current and future pursuits.

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