Maybe we can all agree that it's a fuzzy, gray line, and move on to talking about things that can actually move our businesses forward, or are cool hacks, interesting phenomenon or otherwise generate more light than heat.
If it's really that indistinct, it's scary: I might want to work for a company some day that cares about where that line is, and I'd like to stay on the right side of it.
If you want an honest answer, I think if you want to play the political game, you need to keep your cards close to your chest. You may not like that answer, and you folks can furiously click on the downvote arrow all you like, but I think that's the reality of it: for an extreme example, look at how closely every single aspect of US presidential candidates' lives are picked over, both present and past.
I'll add to that: not everyone should do that - I'm glad that some people have stuck their necks out in the past. We all owe some of them a debt of gratitude. But, by and large, they're probably not the same people aiming at the top job in a large corporation.
Well, obviously I couldn't downvote your comment, and I hope others won't either, since you're essentially right. I'm just disappointed that the Mozilla CEO position is something that requires playing a "political game" in the manner you're describing. "Politics" in the general sense, of course, exists everywhere there's human interaction, but our civic society is damaged when bright, motivated people are discouraged from participating in it lest their actions be held against them in other spheres of their lives.
I'm most disturbed at the number of people who seem to think that it would be a great idea if we could, for example, keep track of the political donations of everyone we do business with so as not to "reward" those on the other side of whatever issues we care deeply about. After all, it's just an application of our "free speech"! That would, I think, be utterly poisonous to our way of life. If this kind of economic activism stays confined to CEO's of open source companies with dependence on their communities' views, I guess that isn't so terrible.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7567700
But that said, I guess everyone - or most people at least - has some things where there really is a line. I would not want to do business with someone on record as having donated to and espousing the views of the KKK, for instance. If they're the teller at the supermarket, I'm not likely to find out about it, but once someone steps into the spotlight, that kind of thing has a higher chance of surfacing, and when faced with it, I'm going to act on my own views. (Regarding LiberWriter, no, we've never had any books that extreme, thankfully). So I guess that's another reason why being the CEO is different.
Let me explain: I have no doubt that Brendan was an incredible CTO/is an excellent hacker/engineer.
But being CEO is not about that, it's about being a leader. Being a uniter and a communicator. a galvanizer to the corporation/community he was trying to lead.
Forget about his donation a few years ago. In the short time he was CEO, he had the opportunity to weather the storm (so to speak) he and Mozilla Corp found themselves in. But in fact, by avoiding the issue, he dug a even deeper hole.
His one interview about the issue to The Guardian was a complete mess PR wise: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/01/mozilla-ce...
It was a mistake to appoint him as CEO. I'm sad that he left Mozilla, he could have continued to provide a lot of value to Mozilla and the Open Web in several capacities, But he was not "incredibly well-suited" for the job as Mozilla CEO, IMHO.
I could come up with a lot of better ways to say what he tried (and failed) to communicate, and whether those points are relevant or not, he completely botched communicating them at all.
For example, his comments about LGBT rights in Indonesia appeared to be about how Mozilla, as a global company in a global market, has to tread carefully in non-liberal markets, because coming out as strongly, unshakeably, and vocally in favour of LGBT rights could carve you out of entire markets which would be willing to look the other way but won't tolerate 'shoving it in their faces' so to speak.
Instead, it sounded like 'gay rights isn't really a given, so who knows how things will end up right?', which sounds to me like he's saying 'This fight isn't over yet, we still might win', which is ten times worse than just saying nothing.