Unfortunately, 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 for 23 years likely makes it difficult to have a proper perspective.
I agree, but there's still a big "Why now?" question in my head. I suspect the board knows of something even more spectacularly stupid he's about to do.
"Unfortunately", because Matt did a lot of good for the internet over the past two decades. WordCamp is (or was) really amazing, the community he built is really great, the Automattic Lounge was cool, he's donated millions of dollars to good causes, and WordPress powers a large portion of the Internet.
He read the commit logs and understood much of what he read. That's deep understanding of the product. That alone puts him in the top few percent of CEOs.
> “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 accusation in the company wide announcements channel, odds are you’re never coming back. A board coup rarely happens without a good reason, but a “leave of absence” isn’t a firing. It’s still pretty bad, but it’s not a firing. However, crashing out and waging war on the board will lead to that outcome.
In recent memory of companies I've worked for, even the absolute WORST executives haven't gotten fired. They always announce that "it's time for another adventure" or "I am taking a break". So I am not shocked they didn't fire him, although the board is now probably wishing they did.
Had a President make a big ordeal about leaving "for health reasons". His LinkedIn had him at a new company within a couple months doing the same thing.
Had a CISO leave for "personal" reasons. Talked to him a couple years later and yeah, he was fired.
Steal 20$ out of a cash register and make the local news. Waste a billion dollars at a corp and make insane decisions and ride out on a golden parachute. Its a fucked up world.
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 why WordPress was ever taken seriously. Given the level of control he has, it was used pretty judiciously for the longest time.
I am of the opinion that his broad charge against WP Engine was valid; I think he handled it insanely.
But as I say, he has come unglued. I'd be surprised if he returns to the job. I wish him well as I think anyone who has made money because of WP should. Things have gone wrong but there was a long run of things going remarkably well.
I do think this was overdue, for everyone including Matt, even though he evidently cannot see it. I hope, but am not hopeful as it were, that he sees that this is a message from the world to change track. I would instead expect to see a bit of revenge.
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.
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 and do not know what else you could possibly call them.
He is very evidently experiencing continuing poor mental health. I don't know why the board would say "leave of absence" if they were not themselves alluding to his health. He clearly needs a break from the thing he does for his own benefit.
I 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 to punish Automattic’s board, it will get worse for Automattic before it gets better.
If Mullenweg attempts to fire the board that just suspended him, he would be weaponizing proxy votes against the very investors who originally granted them. While founder proxies are often structured to be irrevocable, using them to purge the board would almost certainly trigger a massive legal battle, attempts by investors to breach or revoke the proxy agreements, and severe financial instability for the company.
While he technically holds the votes required to disband the board, executing that move would ignite a corporate civil war rather than a clean transition of power.
I’m a bit relieved. Only knowing it superficially through its larger public actions, Automattic used to be one of the “good guys” companies to me. I envisioned myself applying there at some point. This has obviously changed over the last 1-2 years.
I don’t doubt that the good parts were largely Matt’s work, but well ... I think a lot of us followed his semi-recent public actions.
I’m a bit surprised they didn’t pull the plug earlier given they could have. Hasn’t he already caused vast damage?
Still, he has done a lot of good for the internet and world at large. I don’t want to discount that. I just hope he manages to chill a bit.
Voting shares and board of directors are two different mechanisms. Just because he holds 80%+ of voting shares, doesn't mean he can control who runs the company. Shareholders can make up (elect/remove) directors on the board, the board decides who can run the company (or other officials). His vote against was likely true, but if the board is 4 seats and he only has one vote, that's 25%.
A lot of this is pretty typical, but what's interesting is what happens next. He could just remove members of the board with his 80%+ control, and build a board that backs him. I assume they have investor agreements that prevent that.
Anyone 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.
So problem solved? My only criticism is that 1) Mr. Mullenweg should have held tighter controls over the IP and 2) the direction to the community that they are encouraged to use "WP" as a prefix for their business names and products was ultimately a bad one leading to this mess..
It's a little less dramatic than that. They did send a demand letter to automatic.css saying that since 'automatic' and 'automattic' differ by only one letter, are pronounced the same, and are marketed to similar groups the name is likely to cause confusion, hence automatic.css should change its name.
Which is not the same thing as claiming the word automatic generally.
Personally it sounds like a loser if they took it to court since (a) automatic is a common word and (b) they already asked automatic.css to add a "not affiliated with word press" disclaimer (which automatic.css did add). IANAL.
Good, get him the fuck away from Wordpress. Though frankly, a better solution might be for businesses to ask themselves whether or not they need Wordpress anymore.
In the mean time, if you're unable to derisk Mullenweg out of your business stack, this is a good first step.
Unfortunately, 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 for 23 years likely makes it difficult to have a proper perspective.
The entire internet is breathing a sigh of relief
> Doing the same thing for 23 years likely makes it difficult to have a proper perspective.
Preach.
Seems to twist perception that reality is a fractal when it's recursive and eventually exits (everything dies).
Explains religion, politics, and similar longtermism memes.
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.
No reason given?
Any reason needed?!? We can all see what he’s done!
I agree, but there's still a big "Why now?" question in my head. I suspect the board knows of something even more spectacularly stupid he's about to do.
"Unfortunately"??
"Unfortunately", because Matt did a lot of good for the internet over the past two decades. WordCamp is (or was) really amazing, the community he built is really great, the Automattic Lounge was cool, he's donated millions of dollars to good causes, and WordPress powers a large portion of the Internet.
Automattic also bought Tumblr and Pocket Casts, publishing the code of the latter. I used to have a subscription just to support them.
And Simplenote.
Huh. I still remember back in the Gutenberg launch era and all the drama around it (2018) the internet saying he was the devil for profiting from WP.
He read the commit logs and understood much of what he read. That's deep understanding of the product. That alone puts him in the top few percent of CEOs.
IMO.
Yeah, it's unfortunate when anyone goes off the deep end.
Honestly, going off the deep end in recent years feels like a completely valid reaction. Although, I could be trying to justify something in myself.
He still contributed a lot to the world during the good times.
> “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 accusation in the company wide announcements channel, odds are you’re never coming back. A board coup rarely happens without a good reason, but a “leave of absence” isn’t a firing. It’s still pretty bad, but it’s not a firing. However, crashing out and waging war on the board will lead to that outcome.
In recent memory of companies I've worked for, even the absolute WORST executives haven't gotten fired. They always announce that "it's time for another adventure" or "I am taking a break". So I am not shocked they didn't fire him, although the board is now probably wishing they did.
[delayed]
Had a President make a big ordeal about leaving "for health reasons". His LinkedIn had him at a new company within a couple months doing the same thing.
Had a CISO leave for "personal" reasons. Talked to him a couple years later and yeah, he was fired.
Steal 20$ out of a cash register and make the local news. Waste a billion dollars at a corp and make insane decisions and ride out on a golden parachute. Its a fucked up world.
Barring truly bad behavior this is how executives get fired.
Spend more time with my family :).
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 why WordPress was ever taken seriously. Given the level of control he has, it was used pretty judiciously for the longest time.
I am of the opinion that his broad charge against WP Engine was valid; I think he handled it insanely.
But as I say, he has come unglued. I'd be surprised if he returns to the job. I wish him well as I think anyone who has made money because of WP should. Things have gone wrong but there was a long run of things going remarkably well.
I do think this was overdue, for everyone including Matt, even though he evidently cannot see it. I hope, but am not hopeful as it were, that he sees that this is a message from the world to change track. I would instead expect to see a bit of revenge.
> 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.
> 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 and do not know what else you could possibly call them.
He is very evidently experiencing continuing poor mental health. I don't know why the board would say "leave of absence" if they were not themselves alluding to his health. He clearly needs a break from the thing he does for his own benefit.
I 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 to punish Automattic’s board, it will get worse for Automattic before it gets better.
Here is Matt talking about his control: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42657150
If he has 84% voting share, can't he just fire the board?
If Mullenweg attempts to fire the board that just suspended him, he would be weaponizing proxy votes against the very investors who originally granted them. While founder proxies are often structured to be irrevocable, using them to purge the board would almost certainly trigger a massive legal battle, attempts by investors to breach or revoke the proxy agreements, and severe financial instability for the company.
While he technically holds the votes required to disband the board, executing that move would ignite a corporate civil war rather than a clean transition of power.
I'd definitely take away his access having seen how vindictive he has been throughout the WPE saga, for everyone's sake
Here is the whole saga until May 2025: https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...
https://mullenweg.wtf/ picked up after that
I briefly worked in the web agency SaaS space and hoooo boy, I have never known a more gossipy or dramatic industry.
That’s not to pass comment either way on Mullenweg
It’s just WordPress folk are nuts.
It's impressive this took so long.
>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.
404 Media usually has fairly shoddy journalism. Take everything they say with a grain of salt.
The article linked ( https://www.404media.co/automattic-automatic-trademark-matt-... ) is behind a paywall. But reading https://www.searchenginejournal.com/automattic-disputes-use-... it sounds like the claim 'Automattic attempted to claim it owns the word “automatic"' might not be accurate.
That's how you can tell the article isn't giving you the full picture.
I am so curious why now, what changed? The WPEngine saga is started two years ago.
It never ended.
Touché, reworded it to be clearer on what I meant :).
I’m a bit relieved. Only knowing it superficially through its larger public actions, Automattic used to be one of the “good guys” companies to me. I envisioned myself applying there at some point. This has obviously changed over the last 1-2 years.
I don’t doubt that the good parts were largely Matt’s work, but well ... I think a lot of us followed his semi-recent public actions.
I’m a bit surprised they didn’t pull the plug earlier given they could have. Hasn’t he already caused vast damage?
Still, he has done a lot of good for the internet and world at large. I don’t want to discount that. I just hope he manages to chill a bit.
I'm shocked. I always thought that Matt held the majority of the voting shares, and that the board of directors was mostly there as a rubber stamp.
Voting shares and board of directors are two different mechanisms. Just because he holds 80%+ of voting shares, doesn't mean he can control who runs the company. Shareholders can make up (elect/remove) directors on the board, the board decides who can run the company (or other officials). His vote against was likely true, but if the board is 4 seats and he only has one vote, that's 25%.
A lot of this is pretty typical, but what's interesting is what happens next. He could just remove members of the board with his 80%+ control, and build a board that backs him. I assume they have investor agreements that prevent that.
Anyone 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.
So problem solved? My only criticism is that 1) Mr. Mullenweg should have held tighter controls over the IP and 2) the direction to the community that they are encouraged to use "WP" as a prefix for their business names and products was ultimately a bad one leading to this mess..
> Most recently, Automattic attempted to claim it owns the word “automatic.”
Real austin powers vibes
> He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark.
It's a little less dramatic than that. They did send a demand letter to automatic.css saying that since 'automatic' and 'automattic' differ by only one letter, are pronounced the same, and are marketed to similar groups the name is likely to cause confusion, hence automatic.css should change its name.
Which is not the same thing as claiming the word automatic generally.
Personally it sounds like a loser if they took it to court since (a) automatic is a common word and (b) they already asked automatic.css to add a "not affiliated with word press" disclaimer (which automatic.css did add). IANAL.
Good riddance
This is likely how they pull out of the disasterous legal actions Mullenweg has taken.
Reminds me of the first season of Succession
Finally.
I guess when people vote the same way, it’s technically a conspiracy?
No, it's called "voting".
Good, get him the fuck away from Wordpress. Though frankly, a better solution might be for businesses to ask themselves whether or not they need Wordpress anymore.
In the mean time, if you're unable to derisk Mullenweg out of your business stack, this is a good first step.
[delayed]