1148 Brendan Eich, US, Mozilla Founder
May 28. Brendan Eich. Eich is a computer programmer and technologist, whose 10-day creation, JavaScript, is a widely-used computer language. Eich also launched the Mozilla project, then the Mozilla Foundation, and eventually the Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla is an internet company that “protects you rather than profits off you.” Mozilla Firefox is an open-source (technology for everyone) web browser designed with user privacy in mind, whose slogan is that they put people before profit. He served briefly as the CEO of Mozilla (2014) before resigning and moving on.
On this date in 2015, Eich founded a brave, new browser called Brave. He is the CEO of the browser’s parent company—also named Brave.
It is an internet security company which seeks to block ads and trackers, and to protect user data. Rather than selling user data to advertisers, Brave give users the options to receive ads. If they decide they are willing to view ads while using the internet, users receive currency tokens from the advertisers—in effect, the advertisers are paying the users to view ads. Eich’s model could change everyone’s internet experience for the better.
In any crisis, there's a high road called humility. Take it.
The morning of April 3, 2014, tech-media blogs and news websites were in a frenzy. Just ten days earlier, Mozilla Corporation executives hand-selected Brendan Eich to be the CEO for the CEO for the groundbreaking technology company he’d co-founded 15 years before.
Mozilla’s mission statement emphasized the inclusion of all people, with a vision of a better internet derived from multiple cultures and contexts.
Under Eich’s leadership, Mozilla had revolutionized the internet and gave us Firefox—the free and open-source web browser. But within a week or so, the internet Eich had helped to create turned on him.
Six years earlier, in alignment with his conservative biblical values, Eich had made a small donation in support of traditional marriage. Within days of becoming Mozilla’s CEO, this information began circulating the web, an online fury erupted, and many suddenly accused him of an anti-gay agenda.
Eich had listed Mozilla as his employer on a personal donation to a California petition known as Proposition 8, and this was misinterpreted as a Corporate endorsement of his personal views. Because Proposition 8 proposed to limit the legal definition of marriage in California to a marriage between one man and one woman, this information seemed to put him immediately at odds with the culture of inclusion at Mozilla.
“I agree with people who say it wasn’t private, but it was personal,” he said of the donation.
“I'm an employee of @mozilla and cannot reconcile having @BrendanEich as CEO with our org’s culture & mission. Brendan, please step down,” tweeted one of the new CEO’s employees. And her sentiment was re-tweeted across the web. Simultaneously, three of Mozilla’s board members resigned for other reasons, and misinterpretations of this fueled public outrage. Clearly, it wasn’t Eich’s best week in the business culture that he had spent decades cultivating.
When Eich was accused in interviews of bigotry, intolerance, or having an anti-gay agenda, he refused to take the bait, remaining humble rather than fanning the flames of controversy.
“I don’t want to talk about my personal beliefs because I kept them out of Mozilla all these 15 years we’ve been going…I don’t believe they’re relevant.”
Instead, he clarified the reasoning that he held about keeping his personal views out of the office. Eich’s definition of an inclusive Mozilla culture did not require anyone to identify themselves in the workplace with a particular worldview or religion. He operated this way out of the hope that no one would become a cultural target, or perhaps be seen as divisive. Ironically, the backlash over his personal views was now testing these very principles.
Not every online voice turned against Eich, however. Writers like John Howard, a free-market enthusiast at humanevents.com, challenged the “mob rule” online riot in Eich’s defense.
“People who actually believe in tolerance and intellectual diversity have no difficulty understanding the deep sickness of declaring someone a non-person because he disagrees with them,” he wrote.
On this varied backdrop of opinion, Mitchell Baker, Mozilla chairperson, made an announcement. “Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community…Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.”
Eich confirmed the news on his personal blog. “I have decided to resign as CEO effective today, and leave Mozilla. Our mission is bigger than any one of us, and under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader.”
Roughly a year later, Brendan Eich, a humble man of principle, unveiled his development plan for the Brave internet browser. As if the angry, online mob had never gathered.
“When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly” (1 Corinthians 4:12-13, NIV).
When others are offended because of your values, how do you choose to respond? In any crisis, there's a high road called humility. Take it.
“JavaScript Creator ‘Brendan Eich’: Six Facts You Need to Know.” Recro. Accessed August 11, 2020. https://recro.io/blog/javascript-creator-brendan-eich/ Mozilla Firefox. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/ https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=54501157&privcapId=317170098
Story read by Joel Carpenter Story written by John Mandeville, https://www.johnmandeville.com/