Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 416 posts

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#181

Post by mtlynch »

photomatt wrote: post #121
mtlynch wrote: post #35

> So we decided to design the most generous buy-out package possible, we called it an Alignment Offer: if you resigned before 20:00 UTC on Thursday, October 3, 2024, you would receive $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher. But you’d lose access to Automattic that evening, and you wouldn’t be eligible to boomerang (what we call re-hires). HR added some extra details to sweeten the deal; we wanted to mak…

It was posted on September 30 ~10pm UTC, so people had about 4 days to decide.

If it was posted Monday, September 30 at 22:00 UTC and the deadline was Thursday, October 3 at 20:00 UTC, that's less than three days.

It's 2 days, 22 hours.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#182

Post by fhfhfhjfnfnfmf »

photomatt wrote: post #172
badlibrarian wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's early afternoon for me, I'm in South Africa right now. https://x.com/photomatt/status/1842048123541061859 Please don't make assumptions on time zones, it's rude. Also, I am very much listening to the advice from my friends and lawyers, and even some random internet strangers. Happy to change my mind if presented with new information.

[flagged]

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#183

Post by fhfhfhjfnfnfmf »

ItCouldBeWorse wrote: post #27
jokethrowaway wrote: post #21

So whoever is good enough to land a job in this crappy market got a sweet payday and the moat will stay in the company. What a brilliant move! I think these people really overestimate how much people give a shit about their company and what they are doing. Automattic is a sweet remote first shop which pays well - albeit I've heard you have to drink plenty of BS in day to day job. Attacking WP Engine and preventing th…

Its everyones freedom to build a parallel open-source eco-system, that cooperations can not legally leech on.

They’ll need to start from a new code base that isn’t GPL, then.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#184

Post by fhfhfhjfnfnfmf »

closewith wrote: post #37

TIL Pocket Casts is an Automattic product. Anyone have recommendations to switch (and not to the disaster that is Overcast)?

Yeah TIL and now I’m done with that

Overcast is at least independent, so I’ll go back to them for now.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#185

Post by surgical_fire »

cpach wrote: post #45
Sammi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

159 left and they are 8.4% of the workforce according to the article. 159 is 8.4% of X Equation: Y = P% of X Solving our equation for X X = Y/P% X = 159/8.4% Converting percent to decimal: X = 159/8.4\* 100 X = 1892.85714

So we can know for sure that those who stay think that the CEO made a good decision in this regard, simply because they declined this offer?

I don't know.

I really like my current employer, but if they offered half a year of wages as severance I would take the deal without a second thought.

I can't fathom why anyone would refuse such a deal.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#186

Post by johnbellone »

fhfhfhjfnfnfmf wrote: post #170
senadir wrote: post #26

Plenty of people who took the offer were on the fence already or looking to switch companies anyway, it was a good motivator for them.

Are you an employee? I’ve seen a bunch of comments like this on various forums. Is Matt telling his employees to spin the folks who left? Edit: it seems like he is. Wow.

Of course he is.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#187

Post by xnorswap »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #175
xnorswap wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being made to make that kind of decision in such a short time clearly isn't fair. In many jurisdictions it would be an unfair contract. To then say "Look at how many people didn't take up the offer so they clearly support us" despite such a short notice on the offer makes a mockery of the company and it's leadership.

> In many jurisdictions it would be an unfair contract. Can you talk more about this? What jurisdictions? Is an unfair contract a legal term?

I'm not a lawyer, but there is the concept in English law of duress which can invalidate contracts that had undue pressure.

My point was a broader one not a legal one, that the company is acting in a manner that is hostile to a good work environment, putting up this kind of life-changing decision with only a few days to decide and then trying to paint decisions to stay as being a champion of the current direction.

That's treating your workforce with contempt.

Make the same offer with 30 days notice and see how many stay.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#188

Post by Rinzler89 »

addicted wrote: post #42
user90131313 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

twitter fired a lot more % and it's still working

By nearly every measure Twitter is doing a lot worse than it was before those people were fired. It was growing in revenues and profit and since then has shrunk drastically in both measures. Now one could reasonably argue that it wasn’t due to the firing. However, the burden of proof lies with the people claiming that the concurrent loss of revenue and profit had nothing to do with the firings. And Twitter being a pr…

>By nearly every measure Twitter is doing a lot worse than it was before those people were fired.

Care to share which measures are those you speak of?

From what I saw, Twitter's revenue went down only due to the post pandemic economic slump following the pandemic bubble, and due to advertisers leaving en-masse because Musk won't purge the platform of hate speech and other content that's non advertiser friendly, not due to the workers who got fired leaving.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#189

Post by criddell »

deergomoo wrote: post #167
criddell wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Day One is really nice. I actually prefer Apple's Journal app, but for some reason they don't want to put it on the iPad which makes no sense to me. IMHO, Journal should have been an iPad-first app. Until Apple does that, I'll likely keep using Day One.

Extra odd given how much they tout the ease of having one codebase that scales from the watch to a Mac.

I was thinking more about the features unique to the iPad. With the Pencil you could sketch and doodle and hand write the entries. I think that would make it feel more personal and, if the benefits of writing by hand are true, more valuable.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#190

Post by cromka »

fhfhfhjfnfnfmf wrote: post #170
senadir wrote: post #26

Plenty of people who took the offer were on the fence already or looking to switch companies anyway, it was a good motivator for them.

Are you an employee? I’ve seen a bunch of comments like this on various forums. Is Matt telling his employees to spin the folks who left? Edit: it seems like he is. Wow.

What’s the problem here? This is a common scenario in every company out there. I was in the same exact position myself 3 years ago.
Post reply on HN