Bizzare self dealing.

Vote out dude who has 84% shareholder control.

Immediately sign yourself a golden parachute deal for 8 million right before getting fired the next day.

Seems like complete breach of fiduciary duty.

ImPostingOnHN 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A breach of fiduciary duty" describes Matt's behavior through all his escapades here. Minority shareholder rights are a thing, it just seems there are no minority shareholders willing enough to deal with Matt's nonsense to fight for it.

If there is any litigation, it opens Matt up to liability for the same thing. Unfortunately, as we've seen, Matt is willing to self-destruct himself and the company if it would effect sufficient self-glorification for him.

▲

tptacek 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Minority shareholder rights do not generally include a right to remove officers of the company unilaterally.

	▲	jacquesm 3 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If there are enough of them it certainly does. All you need is a quorum at the next board meeting. In this case that would have never worked but in the general case it could definitely happen.
	▲	FireBeyond 25 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		But you can advocate for it.

▲

to11mtm 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If anything the breach of fiduciary duty for those severance packages would not be Matt alone, if the board was the one voting for it.

> Matt is willing to self-destruct himself and the company if it would effect sufficient self-glorification for him.

I've worked for at least one boss with control issues and/or delusions of grandeur, and I will say that, well, if he's at the top, it's his choice for better or worse.

▲

hn_throwaway_99 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can you tell me where you see Matt has 84% voting control?

I thought the reporting on this (at least in TechCrunch) was downright bizarre. The only thing that ever mattered was who had voting control, and I couldn't see anywhere that this was reported in TechCrunch. I can't even fathom how the other board members thought they could oust Matt if he had majority control. None of this makes any sense to me.

Edit: I see the 84% number further down in the article. Still, that makes this make even less sense to me. How could the other board members vote out Matt as CEO with only a minority vote?

	▲	NewJazz an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Possibly if the other board members were selected by shareholders (i.e. mostly Matt). He can replace them, but they represent his interests as a shareholder while they are on the board.
	▲	runjake 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It makes a lot of sense when you see their severance package. I’m going with the hypothesis this was the whole point.

▲

cyanydeez 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

yeah, because as we know, Corporations are all about ... giving

	▲	irregularbowels 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

▲

tjwebbnorfolk an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

fiduciary to whom? everyone who invested in the company knew they were buying in to something where one person controlled it.

	▲	FireBeyond 14 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Says who? If one thing all this legal stuff has surfaced, it’s that has been entirely … opaque … about who is what and owns what. He’s said WP.org is him, personally and nothing to do with the foundation despite it being hosted on foundation servers, made comments about the foundation being independent when it’s just him, a buddy, and another awol buddy. And declined to mention that when Automattic “gifted” WP to the Foundation “so it could be free from corporate interests” that the Foundations first act, that same day, was to grant Automattic a free, irrevocable, exclusive, universal license. And that WPE didn’t owe the Foundation anything for their alleged issues, but their for profit competitor, his private company. Matt has used “foundation”, wp.org, wp.com and Automattic interchangeably for years based on whichever definition was most convenient to him that day, so I don’t really see “it’s clear exactly what people were getting into”.
	▲	hiddencost 44 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		... You still are supposed to act in the best interests of your share holders. "Obviously the CEO was going to break the law, anyone who thought otherwise was a fool." is not grounds for voiding the legal obligations that CEO has to his shareholders.