On 4/7/14 11:03 AM, Jim Taylor wrote:
It fails to state if the board asked Brendan to stay on as CEO or as the
janitor?
Jim,
For what it's worth, I've asked for this part of the FAQ to be
clarified. I can't speak to exactly what happened in that discussion,
but I suspect it went somewhat like this, based on my personal knowledge
of the people involved:
1) Brendan got the board together and told them he wanted to resign.
2) The board tried to convince him not to do that.
3) He told them they were being idiots (probably more politely
than that at first, less politely as the discussion continued,
until they got the point).
4) The board tried to convince him to at least stay on as CTO.
5) He told them they were still being idiots.
Again, that's my personal guess as to what happened, based on knowing
Brendan and Mitchell for 10+ years now.
People see Mitchell's blog post stating that Brendan was not the right person,
that Mozilla made a mistake. This is just not consistent with them asking him
to stay on as the CEO.
Actually, it's not.
Once Brendan has chosen to resign, you have two options. Either you
think that the press attacks that happened were preventable or you
don't. If you think they were not preventable, and if you now know that
they led to Brendan's resignation, then you have to accept that
selecting him as CEO was the wrong move. Not because he was the wrong
person for the job, but because it opened him up to attacks that he was
not able to deal with...
Obviously whether the attacks were preventable is up for debate. The
professionals involved seem to think, with 20/20 hindsight, that they
were not.
The FAQ fails to address if Brendan is welcome to return as CEO.
That's true. Let's say it said that he is. Would that affect your
stance at all? How would it affect other people's reactions? Given
that he doesn't want to do so at the moment, is it important to make
this point?
I ask because we've had a problem for the last two weeks where the press
takes anything we say and twists its meaning as much as it can. As a
result we've had to be very very careful with what we are and are not
saying as an organization, which can be difficult to reconcile with
clarity. :(
No one likes that. You don't, I don't, and I can assure you that
Mitchell doesn't.
People understand that Brendan would have been under a lot of personal pressure
but also that a supportive organization would have given him time to reconsider.
I think you underestimate the extent of support Brendan received
internally. I know many people who said nothing in public but did
privately tell Brendan they would stick with him through this whatever
he did.
It is a fact that a board member resigned rather than appointing Brendan, but
the reason was not given.
I can't speak to that, since I was nor privy to conversations with that
board member. It's quite possible that he has not given his permission
to say what the reason was....
The FAQ notes that Brendan is no longer even a contributor.
I'm sorry, but I don't see this anywhere in the FAQ. Am I just missing
it? Would you mind quoting the part of the FAQ that says that?
People are just not that stupid to fall for the PR spin that Mozilla are
putting on this
It makes me a bit sad that you perceive the truth as PR spin. I can't
fault you though, given events of the last two weeks; it's been hard to
tell fact from fiction.
I doubt there's anything I can say that will actually convince you,
since you will simply assume it's all spin. What _would_ convince you?
Have you considered mailing Brendan and asking him what happened from
his point of view?
-Boris
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