I'm going to point to a blog that I read a few days ago that mentions a few things that I didn't know:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/c ... -eich.html
Eich himself told VentureBeat that the board had interviewed twenty-five candidates before settling on him; he even wondered aloud why they didn't pick Jay Sullivan, who was the other internal candidate for the position.
...His unquestioned technical ability notwithstanding, this was a candidate who divided the board, who had already been controversial, and whose promotion was guaranteed to generate reams of bad publicity. In that VentureBeat interview, Eich said of the C.E.O. job, "I was asked to put my hat in, and at first I didn't want to." Everyone involved would have been better off if he'd just listened to that impulse.
I doubt he had much of a problem with stepping down. I will say this though, not that I believe it's much of an issue here simply because of who Eich is as a person, there may come a time when someone's "political speech" may run counter to a corporation's "mission". It's interesting to run that through the 'ol brain. As stated in the blog that I pointed to above:
This means that Mozilla depends on the goodwill of its supporters more than most corporations do; it relies on their willingness to donate their services in pursuit of the broader Mozilla project, which is all about keeping the Web transparent and accessible. If it alienates them, Mozilla's entire mission will be at risk.
