[ecmascript]

Mozilla essentially did a "get woke, go broke". They fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons, they focused on products that were useless and were really focused on spreading propaganda for woke causes.

I still use Firefox everyday since it's the best browser for linux but I also use Brave. Mozilla as a company in my eyes are a bit lost and they need more focus on their technology. It seems like they have realized this in the last two years or so and I hope that trend will continue. Firefox is awesome, focus on privacy is awesome. MDN is awesome. If they need money from other sources than Google, why not create some kind of subscription service for their MDN docs?

There is a bunch of things they actually need to fix like lack of PWA support in firefox (still) which is pretty bad that they don't have that enabled by default.

Focus on what matters, no one cares about your woke politics in the long run.

[Angostura]

> hey fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons

Marriage equality isn't a particularly ridiculous reason.

[XPKBandMaidCzun]

> Marriage equality isn't a particularly ridiculous reason.

I believe you're trying to do what's right and care about the issue.

It appears some disagree that Mozilla was an appropriate venue to bring the matter up, though.

People use Mozilla for a web browser. Eich isn't making laws and Mozilla isn't ordained to marry. Mozilla is subject to the laws of the state of California and USA, regardless.

People are trying to say (if I may be so bold): it turned a technical, meritocratic culture into an organization that makes choices based on support of a political ballot.

[luckylion]

For the topic of "how to make a browser", it is a completely ridiculous reason.

That's the point of the parent, I believe. They didn't act as a technology foundation, they acted as a political grass roots organization. As a tech-spinoff of a progressive party, you couldn't keep Eich. As a browser manufacturer, his private political ideas are irrelevant and firing him because of it is clearly ridiculous.

[ecmascript]

So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare time? Or does the same rules apply for everyone that works at Mozilla? If so, how the fuck does anyone know what is a fireable opinion? It's not like he used company resources to promote his beliefs or enforced his beliefs on others. What Mozilla did to Brendan is essentially to enforce thought crime on their own staff. It's kind of hard to take them seriously when they say they value integrity after that.

This idea of an outrage culture is what makes Mozilla go down the shitter. No one cares about that shit except a very small minority in SF.

It's not like Google or most other for-profit company cares about marriage inequality either. Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't mean they care. They care about profits and market dominance only. If Google would make more money being anti same sex marriage, then they would most likely oppose same sex marriage and spend a lot of money on lobbying for the opposing view.

I'm certain that firing Brendan was probably one of the worst decisions Mozilla has taken so far. I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue since they only care about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face. I'm convinced that Brave will be larger than Firefox in market share sooner rather than later mostly because of this reason alone.

[Angostura]

> So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare time?

Clearly, if you a CEO and publicly supporting causes, your support for those causes will have an impact on the reputation of the organisation.

Now, I sure you can think of examples of more extreme spare-time beliefs that you might think were incompatible with being CEO, so its a question of where you particularly draw the line. (Or perhaps you can't and you think that any extreme free-time campaigning is fine).

FWIW, I'm not in San Francisco.

Now Mozilla has, whether you like it or not decided to build its brand values and ethos around equality and inclusivity - it is written all through its positioning and marketing material. Similarly Apple pitched privacy. If it was discovered that Tim Cook had a part time gig with Cambridge Analytica etc. I doubt he would last that long.

Regarding Google et al:

> Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't mean they care.

That's correct they don't say it out loud, they don't explicity campaign on the issue and their CEO doesn't donate money towards it.

> I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue since they only care about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face.

If Brendan started donating to an organisation campaigning to give law enforcement and marketing companies access to your personal data, do you think it would be compatible with his position at Brave? Bear in mind that, apparently when it comes to privacy, very few people care about that shit (as can be seen from Chrome's market share) and there is good money to be made selling data.

[jcranmer]

> Clearly, if you a CEO and publicly supporting causes, your support for those causes will have an impact on the reputation of the organisation.

The furor was over positions Brendan had taken years before becoming CEO. And positions that were, at the time, the majority viewpoint.

[ecmascript]

> Now Mozilla has, whether you like it or not decided to build its brand values and ethos around equality and inclusivity

Yes I know, this is why I use Brave and why Mozilla is not relevant anymore. At my company we don't really make a lot of effort to test that our product works in Firefox anymore because they have such a low market share. I am basically the only one wanting to fully support firefox, testing every feature in it, but even I am having a hard time defending that position when Mozilla as a company is being so incredible short-sighted and pushes bullshit.

Their wokeness killed Firefox and I'm very upset about that. I hate the people who ruined Mozilla which was for the longest time the only sane option in the browser market.

I believe they will sooner or later discontinue Firefox unless something extraordinary happens because they won't have enough users to support it.

> If Brendan started donating to an organisation campaigning to give law enforcement and marketing companies access to your personal data, do you think it would be compatible with his position at Brave?

No I don't think so. But his beliefs in that theoretical case woule oppose what the product Brave is all about. Supporting same sex marriage or not has nothing to do with browsers, the internet or even technology.

It's just an unpolular opinion that get you fired for the same company that pretend they value privacy, freedom and integrity. Which to me is now just bullshit I do not believe. In fact there is even evidence to support it, they are sending data to google even when you start a private tab in firefox so evidently they give away data to the same tech giants they claim to oppose.

[Angostura]

I’d love to see your worked examples of why having brand values based around inclusivity has lead to a drop in market share.

Do you have any evidence for that? Or are you assuming that Brendan’s superior execution skills would have avoided it?

[ecmascript]

It's easy, people don't like getting politics shoved in their faces when they're using some product that has nothing to do with poltiics. Especially when they disagree with the message.

Of course, in the Mozilla case it's more than their pander to wokeness that made them become unrelevant. It's their focus on shitty products that no one asked for or wanted. For example, Pocket. Such a waste of money, I'm sure they have some users and so on but come on.

There is no way of donating to the development of Firefox. You can only donate to Mozilla and the money won't be used for development but rather for pushing woke politics.

They have used a lot of money afaik on that purpose alone. To be more inclusive, which basically translates to excluding white men (because that is what it's always about).

But if you want some concrete list, check this one out:

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/get-woke-go-broke-the-master-l...

I'm sure Brendan wouldn't have spent millions on shit products and woke politics but rather to have improved on the core products and stuff like privacy which people actually care about.

This is why Brave will be bigger than Firefox in the long run, because they care about what actually matters. Which is the product they offer.

[TheRealPomax]

If you're a CEO, you no longer get the luxury of "personal time" when it comes to beliefs and opinions. Everything you say, you now also say as CEO of a company, because for as long as you're the CEO you are the voice of the company. You have an advisory board, but what you say you want, or think, or believe, is now inextricably linked to the company you run. You don't get to have a private opinion anymore that you can publish in the safety of "opinions are my own and do not reflect my company's". All opinions you voice, and all acts you take based on them, are now official dictum.

There's a lot of amazing things about being CEO, but this is one of the downsides. If you want your own opinions that may conflict with the company line: don't accept the CEO position. Or accept that people will remove you from that position if it becomes clear your opinions and the company's moral compass do not align. In this case, we saw the latter.

[robin_reala]

He wasn’t fired, he resigned.

[ecmascript]

Not really tho, they wanted him to stay but not as a CEO. He was essentially fired by the outrage culture mob.