> âAnd the biggest news: I won't be able to make the ELT tomorrow,â Matt wrote in an Announcement Slack. He continued, writing that Mark Davies, current Automattic Chief Financial Officer, has âconspiredâ with Automattic Board of Directors members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker âbehind my back and they voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that.â
If youâre doing this type of accusation in the company wide announcements channel, odds are youâre never coming back. A board coup rarely happens without a good reason, but a âleave of absenceâ isnât a firing. Itâs still pretty bad, but itâs not a firing. However, crashing out and waging war on the board will lead to that outcome.
munificenttoday at 1:57 AM
> One person speculated that the timing may have something to do with Mullenwegâs annual trip to the Burning Man festival, after which he tends to return âwith ideas.â
This line is so perfectly on the nose it could be in a McSweeney's article and yet here it is in reality. We are truly on the weirdest timeline.
gkobergeryesterday at 9:52 PM
Unfortunately, this is for the best. WordPress powers a large percentage of the internet, and I'm not sure what's going on with Matt (who I've always liked) but something turned the past few years.
He's been behind unforced error after unforced error as CEO, and I hope a break helps him gain some perspective (although I don't see him being brought back).
WordPress has been his life for 23 years. Doing the same thing for 23 years likely makes it difficult to have a proper perspective.
reticulatesyesterday at 10:07 PM
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 Automatticâs board, it will get worse for Automattic before it gets better.
Oh that's who Mullenweg is? I had a bit of an argument with him on one of the socials, I was making the argument that Zuck has very much jumped the shark but he seemed to be a big fan.
He didn't have particularly good arguments though, given the abject failure to create anything interesting since the original Facebook site (they've been making also-ran clones before buying the competition OR going into new markets and failing since the early 2010s). He has obviously ran the core money machine ruthlessly once he won social.
_fwyesterday at 9:48 PM
I briefly worked in the web agency SaaS space and hoooo boy, I have never known a more gossipy or dramatic industry.
Thatâs not to pass comment either way on Mullenweg
Itâs just WordPress folk are nuts.
solarkraftyesterday at 9:57 PM
Iâm a bit relieved. Only knowing it superficially through its larger public actions, Automattic used to be one of the âgood guysâ companies to me. I envisioned myself applying there at some point. This has obviously changed over the last 1-2 years.
I donât doubt that the good parts were largely Mattâs work, but well ... I think a lot of us followed his semi-recent public actions.
Iâm a bit surprised they didnât pull the plug earlier given they could have. Hasnât he already caused vast damage?
Still, he has done a lot of good for the internet and world at large. I donât want to discount that. I just hope he manages to chill a bit.
ablationtoday at 8:20 AM
Long overdue. Matt needs to get some professional help or support, some of his actions have been incredibly harmful to the WordPress community.
doubletwoyoutoday at 8:58 AM
Good riddance! His neurotic public harassment of anyone who is remotely aligned against him (cf. Tumblr moderation and AspirePress) is simply childish and leaves much to be desired.
His behaviour has shown him to be unfit to be a CEO.
ValentineCyesterday at 9:58 PM
I'm shocked. I always thought that Matt held the majority of the voting shares, and that the board of directors was mostly there as a rubber stamp.
bedroom_jabroniyesterday at 10:53 PM
Quick, somebody back up the WP Plugins repository.
bravetravelertoday at 1:12 AM
Enforced by checkboxes on every login form, no doubt. Less sarcastically: I hope his corporate access is thoroughly controlled; we've seen him in 'full force', before.
Article says no change for .org... this will almost surely become interesting.
timbooktwotoday at 10:29 AM
The more I see, the more convinced I am that Silicon Valley was actually a documentary.
ChoosesBarbecueyesterday at 10:01 PM
I am so curious why now, what changed? The WPEngine saga was started two years ago.
c16today at 7:39 AM
They should have voted on if pineapple deserves to be on pizza while they were at it. The guy had to go.
drammtoday at 12:33 AM
I am surprised it has taken the Automattic board so long, just don't understand that.
zerof1ltoday at 9:22 AM
Hopefully, WP will get better. At the moment, WP itself, its ecosystem, and community are such a cesspool. It should not be used for anything more than just basic blogging. Even then, there are better alternatives. Especially in this day and age, when an AI model can easily write you what you need. It can write you something better than the trash adware on the plugin/theme store.
pier25yesterday at 10:31 PM
It's impressive this took so long.
deletedyesterday at 10:32 PM
stef25today at 8:46 AM
Breaking news big tech guy gets to do nothing and still get paid
This is fantastic news. Matt is an ass and unfit to lead a small HOA, let alone a company and open source project.
ramon156yesterday at 9:48 PM
Reminds me of the first season of Succession
moomoo11today at 7:53 AM
pro tip: donât go public. donât get a board. maintain full control.
jrflowerstoday at 5:14 AM
> One person speculated that the timing may have something to do with Mullenwegâs annual trip to the Burning Man festival, after which he tends to return âwith ideas.â This yearâs festival ended on September 7.
HN needs to allow some html in comments so we can put âlmaoâ in <blink> and <marquee> tags
junontoday at 1:06 AM
Finally.
chris_wotyesterday at 10:29 PM
This is likely how they pull out of the disasterous legal actions Mullenweg has taken.
tibbydudezayesterday at 10:12 PM
Finally.
dcrazyyesterday at 9:53 PM
I guess when people vote the same way, itâs technically a conspiracy?
hermitcrabyesterday at 9:50 PM
>Most recently, Automattic attempted to claim it owns the word âautomatic.â
What is wrong with these people?
bellowsgulchyesterday at 9:50 PM
Good, get him the fuck away from Wordpress. Though frankly, a better solution might be for businesses to ask themselves whether or not they need Wordpress anymore.
In the mean time, if you're unable to derisk Mullenweg out of your business stack, this is a good first step.
kffkfkgjtoday at 6:22 AM
[dead]
josefritzishereyesterday at 10:18 PM
The best line was buried at the bottom. Did Automattic really attempt to claim it owns the word âautomatic?
doodlebuggingyesterday at 11:40 PM
[flagged]
nubinetworkyesterday at 9:50 PM
[flagged]
0xDEADBEEFCAFEyesterday at 10:13 PM
Anyone could have forked WordPress at any time or spun up their own multi tenant instances if they were truly concerned, this just seems personal. Itâs a bad day for founders IMO.
qarlyesterday at 11:30 PM
If the board is going behind his back... then how does he know he was put on leave?
echoangleyesterday at 10:16 PM
> Most recently, Automattic attempted to claim it owns the word âautomatic.â
Real austin powers vibes
> He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark.