The best line was buried at the bottom. Did Automattic really attempt to claim it owns the word “automatic?
Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
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Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#42Anyone could have forked WordPress at any time or spun up their own multi tenant instances if they were truly concerned, this just seems personal. It’s a bad day for founders IMO.
The entire saga started due to WP Engine "forking" WordPress.
Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#43Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#44Unfortunately, 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…
Wordpress enshittified in the mid-2010s. It wasn’t recent. So, I only agree off we resolve “past few years” to at least a decade.
Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#45Unfortunately, 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…
The entire internet is breathing a sigh of relief
Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#46Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#47Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#48> “And the biggest news: I won't be able to make the ELT tomorrow,” Matt wrote in an Announcement Slack. He continued, writing that Mark Davies, current Automattic Chief Financial Officer, has “conspired” with Automattic Board of Directors members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker “behind my back and they voted to put me on a paid leave of absence. I voted against that.” If you’re doing this type of accusa…
He is surely very evidently mentally ill. This is a man who, to be fair to him, has been beneficially bullish and iconoclastic in the WP community's favour for decades, as well as writing a big chunk of what was "early modern" WP. Before he came unglued. The fact that he looked, sounded, talked the way he did, was involved, put his own money where his mouth is, and was press-available to the extent he was is a lot of…
> He is surely very evidently mentally ill.
I don’t think that’s accurate or helpful.
I think he found himself in a situation that he could not cope with in a rational manner. I suspect that many people, myself included, would struggle in similar situations.
Occasionally a person can find themselves in a place where quitting is the best option for everyone involved, but the person at the centre is so dug in that they don’t even consider the possibility.
Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#49I 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…
If he has 84% voting share, can't he just fire the board?
Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence
#50>Most recently, Automattic attempted to claim it owns the word “automatic.” What is wrong with these people?
I was curious what this meant, so I looked into it. They asked Automatic.css to change their name: https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1omrtrk/automatt... Automatic.css is a paid CSS framework specifically for WordPress. Legally speaking I have no opinion here, but I don't think it's as out-of-pocket as it sounds.
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