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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

#211

Post by thih9 »

crabmusket wrote: post #141
reticulates wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing the board is the least Matt-like option. He has absolute control and ownership over the WordPress project, I think it is more likely that he starts his own Automattic splinter company and removes Automattic from the WordPress project. I’d guess he is already filing incorporation docs for Antimatter Inc. or some other Matt themed name.

Laundermatt?

Checkmatte?

But seriously if I had to recommend something, not escalating seems best for everyone involved.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#212

Post by abanana »

stackghost wrote: post #135
dofm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think that’s accurate or helpful. There are, to me, abundant signs that he is severely burned out, dysregulated and irrational. (In this statement, in other statements, in his actions that wilfully worsened his own case against WP Engine, in his blog posts etc.) These are mental health issues. I have experienced many of them myself (I am indeed recovering from them now) and do not know what else you could p…

It just sounds like the behaviours of an unprofessional douchebag to me, not mental illness

Exactly. Don't use "mental illness" as an excuse, he's just incredibly arrogant.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#213

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Shank wrote: post #2

> “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…

Sounds like it's something that must have been painful, all around.

Boards really don't like doing things like this, as it signals instability, and shareholders hate instability. That's why so many boards leave clearly non-optimal CEOs in place, so often.

This is not something that has been a focus of my attention, except when it was shoved into my face. I'm really too old for that kind of agita.

I do run a couple of WP sites. I'm considering switching a couple to static sites, (via a generator, or maybe LLM-generated static sites), but I need one of them to remain WP (for now), as that hosts my blog.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#214

Post by dofm »

smt88 wrote: post #143
dofm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's no need to diagnose Mullenweg when his behavior could easily be explained by being a run-of-the-mill arrogant asshole. He never seems to have broken from reality or suffered a mental breakdown. He seems to just treat people (including his employees, customers, and competitors) like garbage who are beneath him.

That is a question of interpretation. But based on my own life experiences I think there is enough evidence that he is in deep, rolling burnout.

He is making severely self-sabotaging actions that appear to be designed to force clarity through extreme choices, he now writes emotionally in a way that seems desperate and polarising. These are the signs of a man in crisis.

No doubt he has always been a bit of an arrogant arsehole (nothing unusual in that) but mental illness is not just big splashy stuff like psychosis or full on breakdowns.

Burnout at this point is not just some occupational health thing, it’s more like a chronic disorder.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#215

Post by dofm »

joelanman wrote: post #181
dofm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Simplenote.

Which is no longer in active development https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47195093

That is sad but not surprising. I think they always had a bit more trouble with its sync system than they would have wanted.

I loved Simplenote for the longest time but ultimately simple pragmatism switched me to Apple Notes after dalliances with several task management apps.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#216

Post by graemep »

shakna wrote: post #171
stackghost wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just sounds like the behaviours of an unprofessional douchebag to me, not mental illness

But when the same person was extremely professional, kind and helpful, six months before a sudden shift in behaviour?

People change. A change may or may not be the result of mental illness.

I know many people who have changed greatly for the better because of life experiences or their own choices, and many people who have changed for the worse. We all do it to some extent, though maybe not dramatically or publicly.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#217

Post by bedroom_jabroni »

kmeisthax wrote: post #67
dofm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am saying this as someone who has had repeated and ongoing issues with WP Engine as a hosting platform: no, Matt Mullenweg was not even valid in his basic assumptions motivating his lawsuit against WP Engine. The idea that a hosting platform is leeching off the WordPress ecosystem is absurd, for two reasons: 1. WordPress is free and open source software, developed under reciprocal licensing (GPL). Hosting companies…

WP Engine didn't make ACF, they acquired the company that acquired the OG creator of the plugin.

Their contribution to the plugin was a switch to a subscription-based model and they also started reaching out privately to theme authors with ambiguously-worded emails that could be interpreted as them forcing you to stop bundling the plugin with your theme (we had a lifetime license) and directing customers to their sales. Personally I chose not to engage with that communication.

The fight between Matt and WP Engine was messy and I agree with most of your points but I also do think that forking ACF into SCF was a net positive for the community.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#218

Post by pwillia7 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #213
Shank wrote: post #2

> “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…

Sounds like it's something that must have been painful, all around. Boards really don't like doing things like this, as it signals instability, and shareholders hate instability. That's why so many boards leave clearly non-optimal CEOs in place, so often. This is not something that has been a focus of my attention, except when it was shoved into my face. I'm really too old for that kind of agita. I do run a couple of…

Just vibe code your own mini cms on top of your static site. Seriously though, I did this recently with mine and have had great results. It's not a Gutenberg WP experience, more like a decapCMS kind of thing.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#219

Post by slig »

pluc wrote: post #208
Anonasty wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just side note that AI is not destroying one of the largest e-commerce platform, Woocommerce on top of Wordpress.

Ok, Shopify is then. If you've ever used Woocommerce, the one thing you want to do is stop using Woocommerce.

Indeed. I'm very grateful for Woocommerce, but since I use a tiny subset of its features, I'm "vibe coding" my own alternative with way less surface area and less bloat.
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