Ten years ago this week, Brendan Eich was forced to resign as CEO of Mozilla, the company he co-founded, because of ginned-up outrage over small donations he made to groups opposed to legalization of same-sex marriage in California. A visionary technologist whose work had made the web a more accessible, free, and enjoyable experience for everyone was condemned as a hateful bigot and treated as a pariah by his company, the press, and on the internet that he was so instrumental in building.

Rather than fighting for the position he had earned through years of work as lead architect and chief technology officer, Brendan parted ways with Mozilla. After laying low for over a year, he co-founded Brave Software, where he remains CEO. Brave, a browser that prioritizes user privacy and security, has exploded in popularity since 2020. 

A just society would esteem and elevate Eich for proving to be so effective and generous in everything, from his ten-day sprint to produce the first specification of JavaScript, to his stewardship of the Netscape codebase and his leadership at Mozilla and now Brave.

JavaScript is one of the three fundamental technologies on which 99 percent of user-facing websites are coded. Free and open-source, meaning anyone can implement the technology without licensing, JavaScript unlocked a universe of possibilities in function and aesthetics for websites and browser-based applications.