| ▲ | Matt Mullenweg tells Automattic staff in Slack he's back in control after ouster(techcrunch.com) |
| 79 points by mkeeter an hour ago | 45 comments |
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| ▲ | legitster an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| > WordPress founder and a key advocate for the open source community This should probably say self appointed advocate. He really hasn't advocated for much beyond collecting payments to Automattic. |
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| ▲ | ibejoeb a minute ago | parent [-] | | I don't know... WordPress is a pretty huge open source project and community. He also opened Pocket Casts. |
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| ▲ | ebilgenius 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Mullenweg responded to our inquiry, saying a blog post is forthcoming. When it dropped, it was about him buying a houseboat. |
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| ▲ | autophagian an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Has very little to do with the current brou-ha-ha, but I just realised its “Automattic” because his name is “Matt”. It’s like a veil over the world has been lifted. |
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| ▲ | cwisecarver 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Relevant: Kumail Nanjiani learns about Automattic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHcrispG_rc | |
| ▲ | brandall10 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Someone made the same comment in the thread from a few days back. Yeah, it was the first time I realized it as well. | |
| ▲ | vjvjvjvjghv an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That’s fast! It usually takes me decades, if ever, to figure out this stuff. One of the downsides being slightly autistic and taking everything too literal | | |
| ▲ | moritzwarhier 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Also noticed it because of this comment chain. Not sure if it makes me autistic though, I mean, companies use wrong spellings all the time to differentiate, so often that I don't give much thought to it any more. | |
| ▲ | dnautics 25 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Hasnt automattic been around for a decade? | | |
| ▲ | boothby 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It has, but I only learned about it when the drama started hitting HN recently. But since I learned about the guy and the company in the same headline I put two and two together right then and there. I've learned some suspicion of founders who name companies after themselves. | |
| ▲ | dpark 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Two decades. It was founded in 2005 |
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| ▲ | layer8 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It feels like I see this comment in every single Automattic thread on HN. :) | |
| ▲ | Hamuko 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | At least his egotrips make a bit more sense after you realise it. | |
| ▲ | benatkin 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Y combinator helped people notice it when they invested in a company called Automatic https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/automatic However now that it's been acquired that reminder of Automattic not being named Automatic is gone. |
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| ▲ | throwawaymatt 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Just when we (the WP community) thought things were settling down and cooler heads might be prevailing... this happens. Uhg, not great for someone who has invested over 15 years into building with WP and does (paid) business with an Automattic company. |
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| ▲ | JonAtkinson an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This must be exhausting for the Automattic staff who just want to get on with their jobs. |
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| ▲ | legitster an hour ago | parent [-] | | Anyone who wanted to get on with their jobs would have taken one of the buyouts. Everyone who still works there has to be committed to Matt. | | |
| ▲ | BobAliceInATree 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Changing jobs can be rough or maybe even impossible in this job market. I'm sure there are many there that are not aligned with Matt, but just need the steady paycheck. Same was true after Elon took over twitter. | | |
| ▲ | threetonesun 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Applying the word "impossible" to leaving a white collar job seems like a stretch. Also the buyout was almost 2 years ago now, anyone still there must be either in dire financial straits or quite commited. | | |
| ▲ | paul7986 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That's until you find yourself in this job market and you realize now how stupid the digital creation job market and overall jobs are. Once you get laid you are now you're in a pile of 100(edit 1000s) other applicants equally qualified vying for the same job and then hundreds of thousands who can all type to Ai to do a job that once required knowledge & skill. | | |
| ▲ | zimpenfish 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Once you get laid you are now you're in a pile of 100 other applicants equally qualified I'm assuming there should be an "off" after "laid"... | |
| ▲ | zdragnar 25 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Only 100? Those are good odds in the current market... |
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| ▲ | 0gs 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | or they just love wordpress, the product, so much, and believe in it fully. lol | | |
| ▲ | TheRealPomax 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Or they need the pay. It's all well and good to go "they could just leave" but then what? Spend 6 months looking for a new job only for everyone to go "sorry, the hundreds of thousands of layoffs from every other highly skilled tech workforce beat you to it"? |
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| ▲ | sillysaurusx 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What is it about Automattic's structure that lets Matt stay in control? Even Travis got ousted at Uber, and he was the primary founder. Is the company set up in a way that makes removing Matt very difficult? |
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| ▲ | minimaxir an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Discussion on the ouster: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49636283 |
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| ▲ | ttul 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Most surprising in this article is the vibrant HDR magenta circle on Matt’s Twitter. |
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| ▲ | eclipticplane an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm just glad to have my last projects off of Wordpress to get to no longer care about drama at Automattic that seems to never end. |
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| ▲ | VCFundedGenYer 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| When the CEO becomes a diva, the company has lost the plot. |
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| ▲ | walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Doesn't he control 84% of the voting stock or something? I'm curious how a board could even oust him in the first place. Or so he claims. |
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| ▲ | jsnell 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | The ability to appoint a board member doesn't mean you get to control their every decision. Nor is their fiduciary duty just one shareholder. Of course usually hand-picked boards don't go against their benefactor, and they're not keeping their seats. That they did in this case says something about just how bad the situation will be. | |
| ▲ | everfrustrated 9 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Depends on the rules of the company. Just because he can elect the board doesn't mean he gets to direct their every decision. They are supposed to have their own independent judgement. Depending on the company rules it is possible they might not be easily replaced during their term in which case they could do a coup in the short term. |
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| ▲ | testycool 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Did someone make a site to track the timeline of the new WordPress situation, like they did with the WP Engine one? |
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| ▲ | pluc 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| i'm gonna wait to hear it from the people who were saying yesterday they were in control if that's ok > As of yet, no one at Automattic has heard a confirmation from the board. Mark Davies’ Slack account was also deactivated, sources said. mhm, ok. |
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| ▲ | chuckadams 30 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Davies was supposedly the one who originally cooked up the whole extortion scheme against major players in the WP space. WPE was just the first target of many that were planned. Not that Matt is absolved in any way, but it'll be interesting to see what falls out if and when he throws Davies under the bus. | | |
| ▲ | pluc 14 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That'd be the first time I hear about that angle. Mullenweg was pretty public about why he was doing it and it never felt like it was someone else's idea, given his level of commitment. It would be smart to find a scapegoat if you want to stretch your tenure a few years though. |
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| ▲ | xnx an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Does Matt own >50%? If so, the board is irrelevant. If not, I assume he would've been gone long ago. |
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| ▲ | bedroom_jabroni an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Damn it hasn't even been a week. |
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| ▲ | dbg31415 a minute ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Directus is great. And free for small organizations and non-profits. Just saying, there are plenty of good CMSs out there now. WordPress is junky AF, and the spat with WP Engine over... of all things... how they store backups... it was all so cringe. Felt like it boiled down to WP Engines saying, "We don't need to keep backups on the live server..." And WP saying, "Oh hell yeah you do, you can't have your own way to do rollbacks!" It was literally insane for them to fight about that. |
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| ▲ | benatkin an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It would have been just a matter of time before he displayed his power with the nonprofit and wordpress.com which he controls personally, independently of the Automattic board. Maybe that is part of why the board gave him his control of Automattic back so quickly. |
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| ▲ | figassis an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Is it perhaps time to ackowledge that boards where everyone is buddies can't actually do their jobs, yet they get paid obscene amounts of money? |
