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Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

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Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#331

Post by withinboredom »

ppseafield wrote: post #288
Topgamer7 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these days, the average WordPress site runner is trying to find a cheap/free. Non-technical solution. I help out with a sports league who run a couple wordpress sites. - One, its totally the wrong CMS for how they use it. - Two, they have almost no ability to diagnose and debug issues themselves. Honestly 80% of the issues that get raised to me are even just solved by clicking "keep plugin automatically updat…

I'll second the sibling poster here by saying anything useful you want to do with WordPress will probably have a non-negligible cost, and usually a subscription. WooCommerce for instance requires a subscription to add a minimum quantity to a product! I volunteer for a non-profit that uses it, and it's absolutely insane how many plugins will give you a little for free but charge $5/month or $50/year for just slightly…

About a decade ago, there was a huge kerfluffle about making the plugin directory include pricing and payments (like an app store). Matt was hugely against it. I think they did themselves a huge disservice. Pricing is opaque until you install the plugin, often requiring you to go "off site" to install the paid version (or it silently uses a different plugin repository). Lastly, there is no quality control or even ensuring that best/ethical practices are being followed.

So, you end up with this scummy feeling every time you install a plugin and discover its pricing.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#332

Post by ValentineC »

Aeolun wrote: post #174
chx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is WPEngine looked at the amount being asked from them (the lawsuit says "tens of millions of dollars" based on public posts indeed it seems above thirty million a year), divided it by the hourly rate of the best legal representation they thought they can get and decided it's cheaper. They wanted to take no risks. From the other side, after you are sued by Rachel Kassabian you really have no choice but get t…

I mean, presumably you can look at a history of wins in similar cases instead of hourly rate or reputation?

This isn't like a football match where the variables are well-known.

Lawsuits are decided on facts if they end up going to court, and every case is unique even if they follow similar fact patterns.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#333

Post by DowagerDave »

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.

if you've worked at the management level you've seen that GOOD attrition for a software company is maybe around 10% annually (we saw well above 25% coming out of Covid). There's always around this number leaving, looking to leave, or about to. If this flushed out 8.4% with very generous terms that seems low. We should watch the next 6-12 months to see if the expected level of departures continues, or there's a respite.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#334

Post by ValentineC »

FireBeyond wrote: post #272
toyg wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's uncharitable. Mullenweg has been pretty good for the FOSS ecosystem as a whole, and he's just going after one particular company (arguably one particular board member of such company, the SilverLake guy), that he now sees as parasitical to the ecosystem. Musk steered a social-networking giant into american-far-right territory for his own vanity, retweets baseless and dangerous conspiracy theories, and supports…

> That's uncharitable. Mullenweg has been pretty good for the FOSS ecosystem as a whole, and he's just going after one particular company This is actually far from Matt's first rodeo: He described Movable Type as "desperate and dirty players" for having a section in their docs on how to migrate WordPress content into a Movable Type blog. When Envato started allowing people to publish themes they had created with a pr…

There's also this:

https://pearsonified.com/truth-about-thesis-com/

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#335

Post by DowagerDave »

John_Cena wrote: post #318
cromka wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When it happened to me I was surprised to see what was being commented. There was nothing about the actual business decisions that led to the exodus, it was just vitriol about anyone who left was an imposter and now finally the real engineers can get to work.

Well, IMO you were a big part of why the WWE was successful, and they're declining while your career in movies is really taking off, so your personal success should provide you with a lot of validation.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#336

Post by chx »

jart wrote: post #260
lsaferite wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did WPE fork WordPress though? They clearly claim in their legal filing that the WordPress installs they use come directly from the official sources. I don't use WordPress or WPE, but I would (perhaps naively) assume that if they are making a clear statement of fact in a court filing that they are not lying about that fact.

They forked their business, which is WordPress hosting. In the complaint they brag about how they haven't changed a single line of code in WordPress itself. That's way more adversarial than forking the codebase, since the GPL ensures people still give back when they go their own way.

> They forked their business, which is WordPress hosting.

You are constantly talking nonsense. This is simply not a thing. Much as "rizz" and "cuckoo" is not in this context.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#337

Post by chx »

jart wrote: post #140
chx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have no idea, really. Based on public posts only, Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, founder of Wodpress completely lost his mind and went into war against WPEngine for unclear reasons (many suspect it's money pressure perhaps from investors). He claims they don't contribute to Wordpress and WPEngine says while they don't contribute to the core product they contribute aplenty to plugins, sponsor camps and document…

Reading WPEngine's legal complaint https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP... they sound like cuckoos. My best guess is WPE's WordPress hosting business grew larger than Automattic and they're lashing out to survive. For example, WPE has 1000 employees and Automattic has 1700, but Automattic has their attention divided on 20 other products too, which left them blindsided when WPE forked their pro…

Whether the factual claims of WPEngine are true is the matter of the lawsuit but it's incredibly well put together. What have you found illogical in there? Your tone doesn't fit at all a serious discussion. "rizz" "cuckoo" , I detest your garbage is posted as an answer to my rather detailed post.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#338

Post by DowagerDave »

rafram wrote: post #230
ufmace wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually makes me really suspicious about Automattic. Companies generally don't refuse to hire outside of certain countries just to be jerks, they do it because complying with international tax obligations while paying employees in dozens of countries is complex and expensive. Given that, and the behavior we've seen from Matt and Automattic so far, what are the odds that they've actually got a bunch of really gr…

Read up on employers of record: https://www.adp.com/resources/articles-and-insights/articles... (Just hiring people as contractors, as it sounds like Automattic does, is another option.)

we do this in Poland. While they're technically contractors everyone is treated like employees as much as possible. Hiring globally is really expensive, slow and risky for all but the largest companies. It's hard to be an expert in one system, let alone dozens, and that's before state/province/territory/etc differences.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#339

Post by DowagerDave »

mikemitchelldev wrote: post #305

photomatt made a smart move to incentivize the exit of employees who disagreed with him on this important issue (as it would have festered in the company), but I think he offered them too much money.

I agree - he's facing a lot of criticism for reducing diversity or difference of opinion, but you don't promote this in context of your core values and conceptual integrity. You have private debate, reach a decision and then everyone publicly supports the direction. If you don't believe in the decision or can't support it, you need to leave.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#340

Post by chx »

auggierose wrote: post #155
jart wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading WPEngine's legal complaint https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP... they sound like cuckoos. My best guess is WPE's WordPress hosting business grew larger than Automattic and they're lashing out to survive. For example, WPE has 1000 employees and Automattic has 1700, but Automattic has their attention divided on 20 other products too, which left them blindsided when WPE forked their pro…

Oh, finally a summary of the whole thing I understand.

Someone posts literal garbage filled with nonsense words and that's what you understand? What's going on here?
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