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- Hacker News
- There’s an old saying in Tennessee (I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee) that says “never strike a king unless you are sure you shall defeat him”. Bust in, guns in hand, and now find they’ve turned to sausages. (A tale as old as time.)by keane
- Love the subtle nod to the W "fool me once" clip. One of the greatest of all time!by MatthewORyan
- What is it about Automattic's structure that lets Matt stay in control? Even Travis got ousted at Uber, and he was the primary founder. Is the company set up in a way that makes removing Matt very difficult?by sillysaurusx
- Shares. Boards have a lot of power but end of the day the shareholders can remove the board so have the ultimate vetoby Havoc
- He controls roughly 84% of the share-stakeholder votes.by manarth
- Don’t underestimate Matt’s disregard for corporate theatre. A board voting to remove a CEO isn’t like firing an employee, there’s an assumption that obviously the founder would not use their elevated access to retaliate. As noted, Matt controls the majority of the voting stock, but he also controls WordPress as a whole. Removing the founder who controls everything against their wishes is basically impossible. Even if removing his access to Automattic’s corporate systems was possible, it takes one “I’ll revoke Automattic’s license to use the WordPress.com domain” to convince the board to blink and Matt is back. Mutually assured destruction. The board probably underestimated just how petty Matt is.
Travis, Altman, they’re egotistical but ultimately respect corporate theatre, they know that circumventing it is a bad idea, that one must participate in the grand performance, as Altman did. Matt doesn’t care, he’ll do as he pleases regardless of the consequences.
If Matt was a rationale shareholder he would know that what he has done here is a death sentence for Automattic but alas he does not care. Matt will watch Automattic burn before he lets anyone usurp him. The irony is that as a supposed open source advocate, he’s harming open source, he’s showing how dangerous it is for investors to invest in the corporate arm of an open source project when the founder has absolute control over the project.
by reticulates - When the CEO becomes a diva, the company has lost the plot.
- you'd think that but at least one CEO has turned being an annoying diva into being the richest man in the worldby efficax
- Doesn't he control 84% of the voting stock or something? I'm curious how a board could even oust him in the first place. Or so he claims.by walrus01
- Depends on the rules of the company. Just because he can elect the board doesn't mean he gets to direct their every decision. They are supposed to have their own independent judgement.
Depending on the company rules it is possible they might not be easily replaced during their term in which case they could do a coup in the short term.
- The ability to appoint a board member doesn't mean you get to control their every decision. Nor is their fiduciary duty just one shareholder.
Of course usually hand-picked boards don't go against their benefactor, and they're not keeping their seats.
That they did in this case says something about just how bad the situation must be.
by jsnell - I'm just glad to have my last projects off of Wordpress to get to no longer care about drama at Automattic that seems to never end.
- Discussion on the ouster: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49636283by minimaxir
- Most surprising in this article is the vibrant HDR magenta circle on Matt’s Twitter.by ttul
- What does that mean? Why is it a surprise?by edoceo
- It left a temporary spot in my vision after I scrolled it away.by nabbed
- I remember seeing that on his avatar since the early days of the WP Engine drama.by ValentineC
- Just when we (the WP community) thought things were settling down and cooler heads might be prevailing... this happens. Uhg, not great for someone who has invested over 15 years into building with WP and does (paid) business with an Automattic company.
- Time for alternatives?by mpweiher
- Makes me wonder if he really is back or the board just "forgot" to take his account offlineby raverbashing
- As someone in the Rails community I deeply sympathize and understand where you're coming from.by jherdman
- This must be exhausting for the Automattic staff who just want to get on with their jobs.by JonAtkinson
- Anyone who wanted to get on with their jobs would have taken one of the buyouts. Everyone who still works there has to be committed to Matt.by legitster
- > Mullenweg responded to our inquiry, saying a blog post is forthcoming. When it dropped, it was about him buying a houseboat.by ebilgenius
- Not a good investment.by edoceo
- It's easily the quote of the month. And we are only halfway into the month.
- Relevant context - it's not a random houseboat, it's Whole Earth Catalog Stewart Brand's historic houseboat:
https://www.dwell.com/article/mirene-tugboat-stewart-brand-r...
- Ironic how hard he tries to seem like a man of a people and then posts about his million-dollar toys he buys from celebrities like John Mayer. Dude is the definition of out of touch.
- True to form, he has already been on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/user/photomatt) and Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=photomatt) to engage in comment wars.by legitster
- From yesterday (or two days ago?):
> One person speculated that the timing may have something to do with Mullenweg’s annual trip to the Burning Man festival, after which he tends to return “with ideas.”
by pluc