His stance on marriage equality has damaged his image, so he is now stepping down

Apr 4, 2014 07:18 GMT  ·  By

It’s only been a little while since Brendan Eich took the reins of Mozilla, but he has already resigned, following a raging scandal caused by a donation he made several years ago in support of an anti-gay marriage law.

“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” reads a message posted on the company’s blog.

“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better,” the post continues.

Mitchell Baker, the chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, as well as former CEO of Mozilla Corporation, has announced that Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO, a decision he made for Mozilla and the community.

He has also decided to leave the company entirely, saying that Mozilla's mission is bigger than anyone.

She explains how Mozilla stands for equality and freedom of speech and that it welcomes contributions from everyone, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. “Mozilla supports equality for all.”

That’s exactly the reason why the company’s culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public. In fact, this has been obvious over the past few weeks during which Mozilla employees publicly asked Eich to step down from the lead role in the company.

“This is meant to distinguish Mozilla from most organizations and hold us to a higher standar. But this time we failed to listen, to engage, and to be guided by our community,” Baker wrote.

With that being said, Baker admits that the past week has been filled with painful events, but that’s one of the main reasons why the world needs the Internet – to freely engage in difficult conversations that can make the world better.

“We need to put our focus back on protecting that Web,” Baker wrote.

She admits that for the moment, they still don’t know who will take the lead at Mozilla after Eich stepped down, but more information will be made public next week.

“We will emerge from this with a renewed understanding and humility — our large, global, and diverse community is what makes Mozilla special, and what will help us fulfill our mission. We are stronger with you involved,” Baker wrote in the blog post.

Brendan Eich was named CEO of the company quite recently. He is one of the co-founders of Mozilla and served as the chief technology officer for nearly a decade.