I think there are three very different questions to consider here:
1) Should an employee be held accountable for his/her political beliefs. (Heck no.)
2) If someone with different political beliefs than I runs a company, will I boycott it? Ex - Owner of Whole Foods is against Universal Healthcare, so I'm boycotting, though I approve of him running the company. In such a case we support our ideologies through capitalism.
3) Should someone who runs a technology company - a multi-billion, multi-national that shapes our future and impacts our daily work lives & culture - should someone who actively holds and acts upon prejudice be allowed to run such a powerful company? No.
That third one is important - and somewhat scary - to consider. We've crossed a threshold. Large technology companies - and many startups - are literally creating the future. We are shaping the world in a way that goes way beyond the capacity of companies in decades past. There is a far greater responsibility to consider.
It's an interesting dilemma. As a woman, my co-founder (and team mates) are quite likely to be male. I am in love with my work and our mission; having a romantic relationship with someone who does NOT share these passions would be difficult. A person NOT involved in tech startups could never fully understand me. And a totally unattractive individual becomes significantly more so when we hit a rocking work stride and build beautiful things together, hit walls and win together. Fortunately, I need my future lover to summit mountains, too, so I'm somewhat shielded from this potential conflict! (ie - very few tech entrepreneur mountaineers) ;)
Past side projects include: organizing arts festivals, and "The Canada Effect" - YouTube videos I produced after interviewing a few hundred Canadians about their healthcare - which spawned a full feature documentary "The Healthcare Movie" - narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. I then traveled to screenings and spoke on panels about healthcare.
Activist & Civic Engagement filterable event calendar & Org list: ActivateHub We are live in Portland and Detroit. External calendars are set up for auto aggregation. Main purpose is to support existing organizations and movements, get people offline & actively involved in their community. Check out http://portland.activatehub.org
1) Should an employee be held accountable for his/her political beliefs. (Heck no.)
2) If someone with different political beliefs than I runs a company, will I boycott it? Ex - Owner of Whole Foods is against Universal Healthcare, so I'm boycotting, though I approve of him running the company. In such a case we support our ideologies through capitalism.
3) Should someone who runs a technology company - a multi-billion, multi-national that shapes our future and impacts our daily work lives & culture - should someone who actively holds and acts upon prejudice be allowed to run such a powerful company? No.
That third one is important - and somewhat scary - to consider. We've crossed a threshold. Large technology companies - and many startups - are literally creating the future. We are shaping the world in a way that goes way beyond the capacity of companies in decades past. There is a far greater responsibility to consider.