Recently appointed CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, resigned this past week. His resignation was under significant pressure due to his support of California Prop 8 in 2008, which sought to amend California's constitution to ban gay marriage. It seems strange now, but Prop 8 actually passed at the time with 52% of the vote. So why is something that a majority of Californians supported 6 years ago now so offensive that support of it disqualifies you from leading a technology company?
Well, part of the answer is California demographics. Even though 52% of California voted for Prop 8, suffice to say that very few of these voters were in San Francisco, where Mozilla is located. Also, public sentiment on gay marriage has shifted pretty drastically in recent years. But let's ignore these issues. What does it say that a CEO's political donation is enough to be pressured to step down?
On the face of it, support or lack of support for gay marriage doesn't say much about an executive's ability to lead a technology company. We have always thought these issues important for politicians, but politicians (sadly) have the ability to strip away rights. Under federal anti-discrimination laws, a CEO really has very little ability to discriminate without facing lawsuits, even if he or she wanted to. As far as coercion, employment is completely voluntary, as is use of a company's products. If you don't like a CEO's politics, don't work at the company and don't use the products.
On the other hand, the CEO does represent the company to investors, employees, and the public. In the area with the highest concentration of homosexuals in the entire country, it might be difficult to recruit top talent when none of these people want to work at the company. In a state where government regulation can be stifling for any company without connections, it's probably bad to have a CEO that no politician would want to be photographed with. When a lot of the promotion for a CEO comes from speaking engagements (graduations, conferences, etc.) and interviews, missing this opportunity would require a greater marketing budget. In other words, a CEO needs to be popular. People don't just buy products that they like; they buy them from people that they like.
So Eich stepping down as CEO was the right move for the company, given the situation. It is unfortunate that political or religious beliefs could have such an effect on a career in the private sector, but Firefox is absolutely right to realize that retaining Eich as CEO would have been devastating for the company.
Full disclosure: this post was typed on Mozilla Firefox 28.0.
