Re:Fakespot Is Acquired by Mozilla
by quesera on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @10:40PM
(#35797104)
This is revisionist.
Mozilla's mistake was not in firing Brendan Eich (and Brendan Eich was not fired).
Mozilla's mistake was in promoting Brendan Eich to CEO.
Mozilla employees said ~"we were not totally comfortable with Brendan as a leader in the Technology role, but we recognized his long history with the Org and his Technical excellence, so we kept mostly quiet. But we strongly object to his promotion to CEO and primary representative of Mozilla to the world, because we do not feel that he represents the Org's values and do not believe he will be an effective leader of us."
Brendan probably could have returned to his CTO role with little fuss. But he may have had larger aspirations, he may have been sick of working under Mitchell Baker, and he may have been personally disappointed by the Org's vote of no confidence in him. All are 100% reasonable! So he resigned. He was not fired. Yes the board probably recommended that he resign, but he would have been crazy to try to stay in the CEO role after that drama.
> and he apologized afterwards
Has he? Not any time contemporaneous with the events at Mozilla, if ever. I don't think he should feel the need to apologize for personally-held beliefs. But I don't think he can simultaneously hold that particular kind of belief, and be a leader of people at Mozilla.
...
We do agree that Brendan's resignation was a net loss for Mozilla. But he might have not been able to succeed in the Mozilla Org anyway. Even as CEO, he'd have the board to contend with. As CTO, he had the CEO and the board to contend with. If there are effective people in that group, they are not making themselves known.
Mozilla's mistake was not in firing Brendan Eich (and Brendan Eich was not fired).
Mozilla's mistake was in promoting Brendan Eich to CEO.
Mozilla employees said ~"we were not totally comfortable with Brendan as a leader in the Technology role, but we recognized his long history with the Org and his Technical excellence, so we kept mostly quiet. But we strongly object to his promotion to CEO and primary representative of Mozilla to the world, because we do not feel that he represents the Org's values and do not believe he will be an effective leader of us."
Brendan probably could have returned to his CTO role with little fuss. But he may have had larger aspirations, he may have been sick of working under Mitchell Baker, and he may have been personally disappointed by the Org's vote of no confidence in him. All are 100% reasonable! So he resigned. He was not fired. Yes the board probably recommended that he resign, but he would have been crazy to try to stay in the CEO role after that drama.
> and he apologized afterwards
Has he? Not any time contemporaneous with the events at Mozilla, if ever. I don't think he should feel the need to apologize for personally-held beliefs. But I don't think he can simultaneously hold that particular kind of belief, and be a leader of people at Mozilla.
...
We do agree that Brendan's resignation was a net loss for Mozilla. But he might have not been able to succeed in the Mozilla Org anyway. Even as CEO, he'd have the board to contend with. As CTO, he had the CEO and the board to contend with. If there are effective people in that group, they are not making themselves known.