Just to show you how powerful maintaining your reputation online actually is, Ronn Torossian discusses the stepping down of one of tech’s biggest CEO’s. Recently, the dating website OkCupid played a role in bringing down one of the internet’s most powerful CEO’s, Mozilla’s Brendan Eich. Brendan Eich, who was pivotal in developing some of the world’s most cutting edge technologies, resigned under pressure. Eich was the CEO of Mozilla, the force behind the extremely popular Firefox web browser and creator of technologies such as JavaScript.

1. Articles from
Eich Steps Down as Mozilla’s Chief Executive
2014-04-15 16:04:50 Ronn Torossian
Just to show you how powerful maintaining your reputation online actually is,
Ronn Torossian discusses the stepping down of one of tech’s biggest CEO’s.
Recently, the dating website OkCupid played a role in bringing down one of
the internet’s most powerful CEO’s, Mozilla’s Brendan Eich. Brendan Eich, who
was pivotal in developing some of the world’s most cutting edge
technologies, resigned under pressure. Eich was the CEO of Mozilla, the force
behind the extremely popular Firefox web browser and creator of
technologies such as JavaScript.
Mozilla announced Eich’s resignation via a blog post. They explained that their
organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness, but Eich’s support
of Proposition 8 did not match their views. Mozilla noted that Eich – who was
only named CEO a few weeks earlier - made the decision to resign on his
own, “for Mozilla and our community.”
Eich was felled because he once donated money to support Proposition 8, the
California measure that worked to ban same-sex marriages. Eich donated
$1,000 in 2008, and today says he is not sorry that he did. Eich’s support for
Proposition 8 became public immediately after he took the helm of Mozilla,
and the public’s reaction was swift. Soon, it was evident that Mozilla was
facing the backlash.
How did it happen? OkCupid published an open letter that was visible only to
its clients who visited the site via Firefox. It called out Eich, and explained that
clients would not be able to use Mozilla to access their website.
OkCupid was not the only company to show their support of gay rights, and
their opinion that Eich should step down or let Mozilla face the public’s
scrutiny. Backlash on Twitter drew Mozilla’s notice, too, as did outrage from
Mozilla’s employees.
While this is not the norm–asking CEO’s to step down due to their lack of
support of gay rights, it may help to create a real dialogue among
corporations about whether their board’s personal beliefs should in any way
affect their hiring choices.
Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5W PR in New York City.