171–180 of 249 posts
Haven't seen any public reporting on this yet, but from internal conversations this seems to include a 60% workforce reduction at Tumblr, which now only has a few remaining engineers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue was interest rates. Money was free in Feb 2022; the interest rate was literally 0%, and so any cash-generating investment at all is profitable. Fed started raising rates in Apr 2022, at which point leaders started freaking out because they know what higher rates mean, and by Jun 2022 the Fed was raising them in 0.75% increments, which was unheard of in modern economics. By Jan 2023 the rate was 4.5%, which…
Why does the interest rate matter? Unless you have no cash on hand and are operating soley off debt??
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This will continue until there are actual consequences for those responsible. I'm of the mindset that any time a company does layoffs, they should start from the top And work down.
>I'm of the mindset that any time a company does layoffs, they should start from the top And work down. Oh, to be young and idealistic again! So in your world, the people running the business should fire themselves first?
So if you took the deal last year you would have gotten 9 months, now the severance is 9 weeks. Way to reward "loyalty". Good thing we're so smart and better than everyone else and we don't need unions.
Financially your best bet is to be in the 1st round of layoffs. Ego-wise, it's best to be in the second round. First round there's still some money and a lot of guilt, so the severance tends to be good. By the time they lay off truly essential people, you're burnt out, and you're lucky if you don't have to sue to get what you're owed by law, let alone whatever policy they had for paying out vacation time or what have…
Not especially surprising, but there’s an awfully large elephant in the room that likely directly contributed to this necessity that goes completely unmentioned.
Matt's only real problem is not owning his ambition openly. Trying to publicly argue the moral high ground was a stupid, unforced error. It didn't need to be moralized at all. Just make the changes you want to make, piss off a vocal minority, then get back to winning and making boatloads of money by executing exceptionally. The problem, I suspect, is that Matt values how certain people perceive him more than he value…
Apparently not. I'd argue he was perceived as such but has thoroughly proven the opposite by now. There were so many stations to get off the train.
From an alternate universe: I apologize for my erratic behavior which has tarnished our brand and created unnecessary turmoil within our organization. Regrettably, we will need to implement a 16% reduction in headcount to address the financial challenges we now face. I have decided to step aside and hand over control to my deputy, who I believe will provide the steady leadership needed to rebuild trust and restore ou…
He'll never admit he was wrong or step down. He'll drive Automattic into the ground and Wordpress along with it (until someone forks it, like say...WP Engine, heh. Or Redhat, or IBM, or some huge web design firm, etc.) He considers Wordpress "his" even though...he took it over from the original author who was abandoning the project. It reminds me of the rage-bender Jamie and Jim Thompson went on, attacking OPNsense f…
Non Wordpress user here, not a blogger, don’t use CMSs. Curious about this line. Reading the history on Wikipedia, the original b2 was the precursor. It was pretty small and being abandoned. Matt proposed forking it in January 2003, and worked with Mike to bring the first version to fruition a few months later. 22 years later it’s a goliath.
Given that history it seems totally fair for Matt to consider WP his thing. You don’t seem to think so, can you explain?
Haven't seen any public reporting on this yet, but from internal conversations this seems to include a 60% workforce reduction at Tumblr, which now only has a few remaining engineers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matt's only real problem is not owning his ambition openly. Trying to publicly argue the moral high ground was a stupid, unforced error. It didn't need to be moralized at all. Just make the changes you want to make, piss off a vocal minority, then get back to winning and making boatloads of money by executing exceptionally. The problem, I suspect, is that Matt values how certain people perceive him more than he value…
Ignore the financial valuations, man is a worm. I'd call him a 'hack' but that might imply talents given where we are. Through his shitshow, he tried - and failed - to curry favor with an OSS puppet. Not any particular software... like one might think, but the whole "thing" . There was never any moment where WPEngine was beholden for offering WordPress services. Everything was strained to the point he was trying to r…