| ▲ | reticulates an hour ago |
| I think it is easy to underestimate how big of a deal this is. Matt has a stranglehold on Automattic and Wordpress, it is not possible to remove his control over the ecosystem and he is volatile. Ousting him as CEO is almost certain to cause a major reaction from Matt, so, for Automattic to make this decision is a very big deal. The right decision for the long term but the hard decision. I expect we will see Matt try to punish Automattic’s board, it will get worse for Automattic before it gets better. Here is Matt talking about his control: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42657150 |
|
| ▲ | Spinfusor 29 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| If he has 84% voting share, can't he just fire the board? |
| |
| ▲ | reticulates 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Firing the board is the least Matt-like option. He has absolute control and ownership over the WordPress project, I think it is more likely that he starts his own Automattic splinter company and removes Automattic from the WordPress project. I’d guess he is already filing incorporation docs for Antimatter Inc. or some other Matt themed name. | |
| ▲ | chris_wot 25 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | If Mullenweg attempts to fire the board that just suspended him, he would be weaponizing proxy votes against the very investors who originally granted them. While founder proxies are often structured to be irrevocable, using them to purge the board would almost certainly trigger a massive legal battle, attempts by investors to breach or revoke the proxy agreements, and severe financial instability for the company. While he technically holds the votes required to disband the board, executing that move would ignite a corporate civil war rather than a clean transition of power. |
|
|
| ▲ | pluc an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I'd definitely take away his access having seen how vindictive he has been throughout the WPE saga, for everyone's sake |