That alone would be cause for concern. I don't know that I"d advocate his firing, but I'd certainly question his authority to hire & fire staff based on the things he's said.
It's quite simple (and already explained by rit). He posted numerous messages disparaging various groups - blacks, women, gays. He is responsible for hiring within the company. This places Business Insider in an utterly compromised position and in danger of lawsuits.
So? Even aside from the PR (and potential advertising sales) aspects -- which are probably the main factor -- anything he says in public on behalf of himself is, even if not made on behalf of the company, evidence that can be used to establish his motive in any decision he makes on behalf of the company (e.g., hiring/firing) in the event of a lawsuit.
Right now I'm looking at the Twitter search results and being reminded why I hate people in general. Should expressing this opinion get me fired? Should I be prohibited from occupying a position of hiring people because I am prejudiced to assume they are capable of what I'm seeing in those search results?
Somehow it's not fair. A Christian or Atheist or (pre-1960s) homosexual sympathizer would present the same risks to a business as Dickinson did here. His views aren't considered progressive by any means, but 50 or 100 years ago neither would the views of an Atheist or a homosexual. I'm trying to find the difference here between firing Dickinson and, say 60 years ago, firing a homosexual sympathizer.
And I can't find that line. I can't say, without making an absolute judgement using a perfect computer and a perfect observation of the global state of the universe, whether the sympathizer was correct at the time, or whether Dickinson is somehow wrong now. All I know is that nobody appears to have been harmed except Dickinson, and I won't be hearing his opinions any time soon, and that's a crying shame.
Well, a homosexual sympathizer in a hiring position 60 years ago would have been more inclusive in their choices for candidate. A bigot in the 21st Century would be be more exclusive.
He is not being suppressed for holding an opinion. He is perfectly entitled to hold that opinion. And Business Insider is perfectly entitled to fire him to avoid being associated with an opinion that does not match their company values.
He's not being suppressed (and now fired) for holding an opinion. He was fired for publicly expressing views that were incompatible with his job as CTO.
He said in a public medium (Twitter), tagged with his professional title, that he believed superb female developers were as rare as unicorns. Any woman who had ever interviewed and been turned down for a dev position at Business Insider might have a legal case for unfair discrimination in hiring.
The other stuff (racism, sexism, etc) is one thing, but the example I mentioned above exposed his company to legal liability. That's not a responsible thing for a person in a decision-making and hiring position to do.
Sometimes knowing when to shut the hell up is a far greater asset than being outspoken and opinionated. Especially about things related to your job...
"@Liberal Insider: Haha, you'd feel pretty silly for writing that comment if you ever saw my twitter feed and read all the horrible things I say about Obama. :)"
[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-mobile-apps-developer-...
I doubt it very much that he was implying you needed to be liberal OR conservative to work at BI.
"Tech managers spend as much time worrying about how to hire talented female developers as they do worrying about how to hire a unicorn."