I think you may have to start a new community for this, I’m genuinely not sure where a story like this might go. Excellent, though. Very interested to find out more.
The “Casual conservation” community is probably too casual for this. Maybe creating something like /c/WildPersonalStories ?
The sale of Pebble was supposed to include the developers jobs. They found out very late in the game that this wasn’t true. He screwed his devs on the way out. Basically said “fuck your job, good luck.”. Real shitty way to handle it, imo.
Coupled with the fact that it meant all real support for Pebble was gone as well, it really was about Micigovsky making out with a bunch of money and saying “good luck, I dont actually care what happens” to his devs and the people who bought a Pebble.
The way it shook out just doesn’t make me trust him. I think he would do the same thing again, sell to a more scummy third party who will strip Beeper for profit when he isn’t making enough money.
I honestly distrust their business model as a successful long term one, based on his past.
Guy behind Beeper fucked Pebble smartwatch users and developers on his way out.
So when Beeper isn’t making enough money and he sells it… Will you trust who he sells it to to keep it secure instead of aiming to use data for ads or some shit?
Hey check it out, this guy hasn’t heard of Franz Ferdinand! /s
As to not be rude or dismissive: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is generally credited with the start of World War I. The implication being that a world war has been started over a seemingly small event that had tumultuous consequences thereafter. The further implication being that we may already be past a Franz Ferdinand assassination type event and may be worryingly headlong into a path to large scale warfare once again.
No problem. I remember being mildly irked about it at the time, because while I disagree with his choice to make that donation to that group, and understand the feelings of LGBT people working at Mozilla and how knowing his politics impacted them… He handled the public response to it professionally. He didn’t double down like conservative politicians these days and start shouting about “gays are groomers” or something. He owned it and stepped away, which should at least speak to him not being completely homophobic and able to take ownership of how his personal politics affected others. You see so little of that these days, that when someone acts professionally after perceived wrongdoing, it seems sad when people don’t recognize it.
Also, I never saw any news of him being proven to have made any discriminatory moves while in Mozilla at all. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember employee complaints of being treated differently before the news of his donation broke. Like I said, I can understand how that news can change how you feel about your boss, but if your boss never made an outward show of it in a work environment and a news report on his political donations is what it took for you to know his politics… it means he was probably being pretty fucking professional at work and trying to not let his personal politics infect how he treated his coworkers and employees. *shrugs
Oh for sure, it didn’t undermine your point excessively, just a little, I was mostly just being cheeky, just how it read to me. As I said, I agree with all the things you’re saying. Cheers!
That’s fair, but in that case you might just say “they likely profited handsomely off this venture” or something similar, because if you reach for dollar amounts like that, it can kind of undermine your point.
Also, and I hate to defend a homophobe here, but if we’re going back to the details…
It all sprang up because he gave $1000 to the Prop 8 campaign for banning same sex marriage in California.
Scummy, to be sure, but it’s not like he orchestrated the whole campaign or fully financed them. $1000 is barely enough to pay for one TV ad to play exactly one time on a local California TV station. I understand, yes, that when you add that to the rest of the donations, it was a juggernaut, but it still felt a little like punishing someone for having different politics. I also understand that it would be hard to work under someone like that knowing what his politics are, and questioning if that was going to impact fellow LGBT employees. Super valid reasons to be upset that he was put in the top leadership position.
His politics are shitty, to be sure, but a single $1000 donation definitely always seemed a little overblown to me. Especially since he chose to resign after just 11 days, while Mozilla had tried to convince him to stay on in a different role. No one in leadership roles stepped down over him, he made the choice to save the organization instead of himself. That at least showed some sense of humility. So I don’t know, not the greatest guy, and his current trajectory with Brave hasn’t been so great either, but he at least showed decorum in that situation.
However, that situation also put Mozilla on the defensive, having to put out a FAQ about how they weren’t turning into an activist organization, or how you didn’t have to ascribe to and agree on every political issue to work at Mozilla.
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