One important people to keep in mind as they read this post, the linked Google Doc, and tweets from the past day where a bunch of people are receiving unsolicited DMs[1] from Automattic with grammar that matches Matt's:
- Matt, under various guises, is shifting blame to different entities that are effectively himself.
- Automattic is Matt. Matt is the CEO of Automattic.
- The WordPress Foundation is, effectively, Matt.
- The problem is Matt. Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous.
"Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous."
This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now.
It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about it.
Matt has a history of doing this. There was a similar blowup at Tumblr (owned by Automattic) earlier this year [1] where Matt did the same thing, DM'ing users criticizing him and even tweeting out the private handles of the user he was beefing with.
Mullenweg just keeps digging. He is the only person I have ever seen interacting in such a petty manner that he made a company backed by Private Equity look like a victim. If Trademark was the issue, why did it take him over a decade ? Why is he not going after all the other gazillion WP providers that use similar phrase on their website ? We all know the answer. The only company (WP Engine) that beat his for profit company (wordpress.com). He is just salty.
> He is the only person I have ever seen interacting in such a petty manner that he made a company backed by Private Equity look like a victim
Right. At the very start of this I was automatically on wordPress' side because yeah, kick back if you make a mint off free code. It's the morally correct thing to do.
The rest is just.. wtf. I hope I never mullenweg a project this badly.
I do think it's worth noting Automattic has raised ~$984M (via PE/other investors), whereas WP Engine has raised far less & is somehow doing far better with less headcount.
What's really telling is ~9 of Automattic's 46 own investments were inside the WordPress ecosystem, vs. 100% of WP Engine's. Things like Beeper for $124M in April of 2024 just seem awkward in light of the recent complaints about WP Engine not doing enough.
> he made a company backed by Private Equity look like a victim
Jason Cohen understood the tradeoffs of using private equity versus bootstrapping. He goes into the decision in more depth elsewhere, but at 44s into this video about avoiding private equity he alludes to his decision:
Tinfoil theory: Matt is actually paid by or invested in Silver Lake/WPE and using his position to tank the foundation on their behalf. Then WPE is actually king WP, and a new OSS foundation must rise from the ashes and they'll be there as trusted, responsible party to select the leaders
I admit, this is pretty far-fetched, and I don't even believe it, but I'd say the same thing about the whole affair
Well charitably I would suspect that for the first question, he probably didn't want to rock the open source community too much. Look at the trouble the rust foundation got into for trademark enforcement, and it hasn't really been a decade. In general, there's no good time to start flexing on your trademark.
For your second question, Matt claims that it's partly because WP engine disabled core features of WordPress. I can imagine a world where you are inundated with complaints that your software doesn't do X basic thing (because the top provider has disabled it) but ITS BEEN THERE THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME TIME STOP COMPLAINING (put a smile on and explain calmly). You get my point. And then you snap.
No idea if that's what is in his mind but I have some sympathy for Matt. In principle. (This is me steelmanning Matt)
What you've said is completely true, but I still can't detect any bad behavior here. He stopped supporting a company that was threatening (not unfairly) his company with his software. Why would he be obligated to justify that?
If you built your business next to mine, and I shared e.g. my water infrastructure with you for free or for a nominal fee, then one day your business got large enough to threaten my business, am I obligated to let you keep using my water, or should you have figured something else out long ago?
He is absolutely destroying WordPress. I wasn't ever a fan but given that 40% of websites rely upon it, the end users are the ones who will suffer the most here.
If somebody doesn't fork WordPress soon, it will be decades before WordPress is purged from the web and in the meantime a lot of those remaining sites will devolve into bot-net members and malware hosts.
Because that's how Mullenwegs crusade is going to end: With the death of WordPress.
My tinfoil hat - this is all semi-intentional self-sabotage.
WordPress is itself a fork of a previous open-source GPL license. Meaning Mullenweg couldn't make it close source even if he wanted to.
He makes it pretty clear that he thinks all of WordPress should belong to him. So he's intentionally closing out the ecosystem by making it as hostile to third-parties as possible.
It's just "value capture" at this point. WPEngine is much larger than his own for-profit and the market is prob tapping out, which has got to be frustrating.
There is much more to be made for him scorching the earth and either directing them to his company or taking a cut of competitors. I guess the logic is who cares if the overall system suffers as long as he has the biggest piece of the pie.
Yep. Feels like they're getting ready for an IPO, and they see the open source ecosystem around them as potential future competitors rather than an advantage.
At the end of the day having half of the web running their platform is a nice idea, but having even 5% of that exclusively on Wordpress.com, or Wordpress VIP is way better for the wallet.
"It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute"
No one with money at stake will allow their Wordpress install to be subject to random sabotage by the whims of unhinged behavior. I don't know if a fork is the solution, but Matt can't have admin access to so many installs.
What I am not seeing in any of the discussions about this is the connection with various database products that used to be Open Source but then changed their licenses because they didn’t like AMZN and the like offering hosted versions of their products without paying anything. It’s a similar situation.
It's quite similar, and in both cases the problem is the same: open source is not a business model.
You can make a business that supports an open source product by providing hosting or services, but you cannot expect to be the largest provider or to make the most money off of it because you're giving away much of your labor for free.
This is all well and good if you're a company whose mission is simply to ensure that the software survives—in that case your business exists precisely to enable you to give away free labor—but we run into issues when companies want to become large and profitable and pay off investors.
That's why AWS's hosting is a problem. If you look at each database who's done it it's never about sustainability for the project, it's always that the for profit entity isn't profitable enough.
As an open source creator, I can understand Matt's position to some extent and the frustration behind seeing some competitor profiting from his work. He is clearly eccentric. The part about him asking WP Engine for revenue-sharing in exchange for changing words in his speech made me chuckle. What I don't understand is why he cares so much. He is probably one of the wealthiest OSS people of all time so it seems petty in that context.
Creating uncertainty (both for users and ecosystem developers) means he’s sabotaging it.
It doesn’t matter what he thinks he’s doing (my belief is that he’s just frustrated that someone else is profiting more than he thinks is “fair” and is using everything else as a cover, but maybe he does actually believe WPE is causing harm).
But here’s the problem I have with the whole position he’s taken. If this were actually about “Wordpress the project/community” the payment would be to the non profit not his personal for-profit company. If it was about trademarks, he should not have made the prior claims that the trademarks were not the property of his for profit when they functionally are. He would have not misrepresented the non profit as an independent entity (a fiction demonstrated clearly by the requirement to compensate his for profit).
if WPEngine is not contributing a “fair” amount to an open source project that sucks, but that’s always a risk if you want to build a for profit business on an OSS basis. But you can’t then unilaterally and retroactively change the rules later on, and act like it’s a “protecting the community” nonsense. You sure as shit don’t get to just engage in explicit extortion.[1]
Again, maybe wpengine was not contributing a fair share back to “the community”, but that’s just how OSS works, not everyone is a contributor.
[1] something I’ve found myself wondering about: my understanding is that under the law a contract signed under duress is not valid. Given the threats Matt was making, if WPE had signed it, would they be able to then go to court and say it was not enforceable due to the threat being leveled at them?
Last year, I was contacted out of the blue by an Automattic recruiter who encouraged me to apply for an engineering position there. I was intrigued for a few minutes because I recognized the company and knew they did some really terrific open source work once upon a time.
But then I regained my senses... I don't have any kind of reputation or extensive proof of accomplishments or character outside of my resume and real-life social circle. Any company that would cold-contact someone like me is 100% dealing with either abnormally low offer acceptance or abnormally high employee turnover, or both. I also remember reading (on Reddit and such) from previous employees that the CEO was best described as "mercurial."
There were enough bright waving red flags that I did not bother to respond.
Automattic's recruitment process is also... "involved":
> Write a thoughtful cover letter, and thorough responses to application questions.
I've seen these kind of application questions before. These are not from Automattic but comparable to what I saw from them: "Describe in detail, including the metrics, KPIs and reasoning you used when you launched your previous 0 to 1 product to ensure a good fit to your customer", "Describe in detail the biggest challenge and obstacles you've overcome getting a product to market, including both the technical aspects and business/people components, and be specific about the role you played in making sure these were surmountable" and so on.
> a Slack interview
This is actually novel and kinda cool, especially when it's one of the primary ways you might communicate day-to-day.
> 30-60 minutes Zoom interview
> Code Test for engineers - We expect the code test will take no more than a couple of days, and this is done asynchronously over the course of approximately a week
That's starting to add up.
> Trial "can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. Most candidates complete the trial while working full-time and we know life is busy"
Better check your existing employment contract about moonlighting / outside employment (I am not saying I agree with such restrictions, but given how common they are, maybe this should be called out a little more....)
Cold outreaches from an employer's recruiters can be from sourcers doing dumb keyword searches.
But can also be because your name was put in the hat by someone at the company (either because they know you, or because they saw something you said online).
I've worked for quite a few recognizable organizations and let me say this: Basing hiring decisions on past employers is just plain dumb unless you are looking for someone with extremely niche skills. Earlier in my career, some local jerk told me I hadn't worked with "prestigious" enough institutions to join his startup, despite having the exact skills he needed in a candidate. His startup failed while I, coincidentally, went to work for those "prestigious" organizations he was chasing. It's all very silly.
There's a good chance the recruiter was just spamming anyone and everyone they could find. At least 50% of the cold recruiter messages I've gotten have been for roles that had nothing to do with my background.
There was a shift at some point in the tech industry from CEO-as-professional-career-administrator-type to CEO-as-visionary-weirdo-founder-type. I think over the last few years, we are increasingly seeing the consequences of this.
(Not that the previous model was foolproof, but they were usually a lot easier to get rid of when they went rogue; for instance see Léo Apotheker.)
The article update links to a Google Doc in which Matt takes issue with the following remark from the article:
> he's a wealthy CEO of a for-profit corporation that is attacking a competitor
Matt responds:
> WP Engine is a “competitor”, but so is every other web host in the world. Automattic and WordPress.org have had good relations with all the others for 21 years. WordPress.org recommends a number of hosts.
It seems Matt is forgetting his "friendly" spat with GoDaddy a few years ago.
Matt continues:
> His criticism of certain practices focuses on maintaining the platform’s integrity and open-source commitment to ensure the community can grow further with sustainable investments.
Let's assume this is all true. It doesn't change the fact that he's attacking a direct competitor.
Matt continues:
> Silver Lake is far wealthier than Matt or Automattic.
This is how you know that Matt wrote the response. It's the same ego defending behavior that he used when responding to DHH.
Matt is very, very bad at PR. It's really time he learns that and lets others take over those roles. And it's time he learns to shut up. He hurts more than he helps.
Matt’s response to DHH was really some of the pettiest stuff I’ve seen from a major public figure in the tech world
Maybe its a newfound persona, maybe its a new marketing angle, or maybe its just someone going a little unhinged. But all isn’t right in the WordPress world
I think he's right about the movement, right about better monetization for open source, right about the trademark issues, and while rude, his comments are harsh truths about DHH and his work in OSS.
Obviously, they way he's handled everything has been bad - very valid to ask why he didn't act sooner about the trademark issue. And, snide comments about DHH not donating enough to charity are irrelevant. But he is right about a the core issues.
The Google doc linked in this post is theoretically a way for a corporation to harvest the Google usernames of people accessing it. They probably wouldn’t be able to see IPs but that doesn’t prohibit Google from writing your username into their audit logs for them. Use appropriate precautions when accessing.
That's not how it works... at all. Only within an org can you track, and when you share publicly (not individually) you cannot see their view history, only aggregate and anonymous.
Way too early to tell, but the way everyone is piling on this guy and saying he has mental problems makes me believe he will end up being in the right on this
Because you are contrarian just to be contrarian? That is a very lazy thing to be, arguably even lazier than blindly following the masses. It is a way to feel superior without having to think.
Why don't you read up and form your own opinion? It is just like 15-30 minutes of research.
runjake|1 year ago
- Matt, under various guises, is shifting blame to different entities that are effectively himself.
- Automattic is Matt. Matt is the CEO of Automattic.
- The WordPress Foundation is, effectively, Matt.
- The problem is Matt. Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous.
1. https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1846448485979107824
zeruch|1 year ago
This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now.
It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about it.
segasaturn|1 year ago
1: https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/22/tumblr-ceo-publicly-spars-...
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
10c17f24|1 year ago
Whether he's "right" or "wrong", this is a list of Adderall side effects that seem to match Mullenweg's behavior:
* Increased Sociability: More outgoing and talkative.
* Risk-Taking Behavior: Engaging in impulsive or risky actions.
* Reduced Inhibition: Less self-consciousness, more expressive.
* Improved Confidence: Greater willingness to take on challenges.
* Euphoria: Feelings of happiness and pleasure.
* Potential for Overindulgence: Risky behaviors may increase.
throwawaymaths|1 year ago
As forseen by silicon valley
codegeek|1 year ago
corobo|1 year ago
Right. At the very start of this I was automatically on wordPress' side because yeah, kick back if you make a mint off free code. It's the morally correct thing to do.
The rest is just.. wtf. I hope I never mullenweg a project this badly.
davidandgoliath|1 year ago
What's really telling is ~9 of Automattic's 46 own investments were inside the WordPress ecosystem, vs. 100% of WP Engine's. Things like Beeper for $124M in April of 2024 just seem awkward in light of the recent complaints about WP Engine not doing enough.
robocat|1 year ago
Jason Cohen understood the tradeoffs of using private equity versus bootstrapping. He goes into the decision in more depth elsewhere, but at 44s into this video about avoiding private equity he alludes to his decision:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw&t=0m44s
qbxk|1 year ago
I admit, this is pretty far-fetched, and I don't even believe it, but I'd say the same thing about the whole affair
throwawaymaths|1 year ago
For your second question, Matt claims that it's partly because WP engine disabled core features of WordPress. I can imagine a world where you are inundated with complaints that your software doesn't do X basic thing (because the top provider has disabled it) but ITS BEEN THERE THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME TIME STOP COMPLAINING (put a smile on and explain calmly). You get my point. And then you snap.
No idea if that's what is in his mind but I have some sympathy for Matt. In principle. (This is me steelmanning Matt)
pessimizer|1 year ago
If you built your business next to mine, and I shared e.g. my water infrastructure with you for free or for a nominal fee, then one day your business got large enough to threaten my business, am I obligated to let you keep using my water, or should you have figured something else out long ago?
itfossil|1 year ago
If somebody doesn't fork WordPress soon, it will be decades before WordPress is purged from the web and in the meantime a lot of those remaining sites will devolve into bot-net members and malware hosts.
Because that's how Mullenwegs crusade is going to end: With the death of WordPress.
sureIy|1 year ago
> you can just continue to use WordPress without any impact
That's nice—
> on any other host than WP Engine
That's the whole point, Matt.
legitster|1 year ago
WordPress is itself a fork of a previous open-source GPL license. Meaning Mullenweg couldn't make it close source even if he wanted to.
He makes it pretty clear that he thinks all of WordPress should belong to him. So he's intentionally closing out the ecosystem by making it as hostile to third-parties as possible.
As some like to say, "the cruelty is the point".
ookblah|1 year ago
There is much more to be made for him scorching the earth and either directing them to his company or taking a cut of competitors. I guess the logic is who cares if the overall system suffers as long as he has the biggest piece of the pie.
easyThrowaway|1 year ago
At the end of the day having half of the web running their platform is a nice idea, but having even 5% of that exclusively on Wordpress.com, or Wordpress VIP is way better for the wallet.
xnx|1 year ago
No one with money at stake will allow their Wordpress install to be subject to random sabotage by the whims of unhinged behavior. I don't know if a fork is the solution, but Matt can't have admin access to so many installs.
PaulHoule|1 year ago
ceejayoz|1 year ago
lolinder|1 year ago
You can make a business that supports an open source product by providing hosting or services, but you cannot expect to be the largest provider or to make the most money off of it because you're giving away much of your labor for free.
This is all well and good if you're a company whose mission is simply to ensure that the software survives—in that case your business exists precisely to enable you to give away free labor—but we run into issues when companies want to become large and profitable and pay off investors.
That's why AWS's hosting is a problem. If you look at each database who's done it it's never about sustainability for the project, it's always that the for profit entity isn't profitable enough.
pyrale|1 year ago
This looks more like Amazon copying products from successful sellers on its marketplace, then pushing them to the side.
jongjong|1 year ago
pessimizer|1 year ago
olliej|1 year ago
It doesn’t matter what he thinks he’s doing (my belief is that he’s just frustrated that someone else is profiting more than he thinks is “fair” and is using everything else as a cover, but maybe he does actually believe WPE is causing harm).
But here’s the problem I have with the whole position he’s taken. If this were actually about “Wordpress the project/community” the payment would be to the non profit not his personal for-profit company. If it was about trademarks, he should not have made the prior claims that the trademarks were not the property of his for profit when they functionally are. He would have not misrepresented the non profit as an independent entity (a fiction demonstrated clearly by the requirement to compensate his for profit).
if WPEngine is not contributing a “fair” amount to an open source project that sucks, but that’s always a risk if you want to build a for profit business on an OSS basis. But you can’t then unilaterally and retroactively change the rules later on, and act like it’s a “protecting the community” nonsense. You sure as shit don’t get to just engage in explicit extortion.[1]
Again, maybe wpengine was not contributing a fair share back to “the community”, but that’s just how OSS works, not everyone is a contributor.
[1] something I’ve found myself wondering about: my understanding is that under the law a contract signed under duress is not valid. Given the threats Matt was making, if WPE had signed it, would they be able to then go to court and say it was not enforceable due to the threat being leveled at them?
bityard|1 year ago
But then I regained my senses... I don't have any kind of reputation or extensive proof of accomplishments or character outside of my resume and real-life social circle. Any company that would cold-contact someone like me is 100% dealing with either abnormally low offer acceptance or abnormally high employee turnover, or both. I also remember reading (on Reddit and such) from previous employees that the CEO was best described as "mercurial."
There were enough bright waving red flags that I did not bother to respond.
caekislove|1 year ago
simanyay|1 year ago
In my experience that’s how recruiters work and the only thing it indicates is that the company has open roles to fill.
FireBeyond|1 year ago
> Write a thoughtful cover letter, and thorough responses to application questions.
I've seen these kind of application questions before. These are not from Automattic but comparable to what I saw from them: "Describe in detail, including the metrics, KPIs and reasoning you used when you launched your previous 0 to 1 product to ensure a good fit to your customer", "Describe in detail the biggest challenge and obstacles you've overcome getting a product to market, including both the technical aspects and business/people components, and be specific about the role you played in making sure these were surmountable" and so on.
> a Slack interview
This is actually novel and kinda cool, especially when it's one of the primary ways you might communicate day-to-day.
> 30-60 minutes Zoom interview
> Code Test for engineers - We expect the code test will take no more than a couple of days, and this is done asynchronously over the course of approximately a week
That's starting to add up.
> Trial "can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. Most candidates complete the trial while working full-time and we know life is busy"
Better check your existing employment contract about moonlighting / outside employment (I am not saying I agree with such restrictions, but given how common they are, maybe this should be called out a little more....)
neilv|1 year ago
But can also be because your name was put in the hat by someone at the company (either because they know you, or because they saw something you said online).
evantbyrne|1 year ago
rurp|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
rsynnott|1 year ago
(Not that the previous model was foolproof, but they were usually a lot easier to get rid of when they went rogue; for instance see Léo Apotheker.)
neilv|1 year ago
But, obviously, this is currently looking like a disaster of PR and community.
So, hopefully they can figure out:
* solutions to the open source sustainability challenges,
* a solution to the harm done by recent mistakes, and
* how to try to prevent mistakes like that from happening again.
ankleturtle|1 year ago
Matt responds: > WP Engine is a “competitor”, but so is every other web host in the world. Automattic and WordPress.org have had good relations with all the others for 21 years. WordPress.org recommends a number of hosts.
It seems Matt is forgetting his "friendly" spat with GoDaddy a few years ago.
Matt continues: > His criticism of certain practices focuses on maintaining the platform’s integrity and open-source commitment to ensure the community can grow further with sustainable investments.
Let's assume this is all true. It doesn't change the fact that he's attacking a direct competitor.
Matt continues: > Silver Lake is far wealthier than Matt or Automattic.
This is how you know that Matt wrote the response. It's the same ego defending behavior that he used when responding to DHH.
Matt is very, very bad at PR. It's really time he learns that and lets others take over those roles. And it's time he learns to shut up. He hurts more than he helps.
legitster|1 year ago
It's worth pointing out that, of the hosts Wordpress.org just promoted (https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wp-engine-promotions/) 3 are owned by Automattic and the other 2 pay Automattic licensing/service fees.
spaceman_2020|1 year ago
Maybe its a newfound persona, maybe its a new marketing angle, or maybe its just someone going a little unhinged. But all isn’t right in the WordPress world
unknown|1 year ago
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ChrisMarshallNY|1 year ago
ElonM Has Entered the Chat
< Removed the Link, because it can be interpreted as political. I was talking about his statement, which was simply puerile. >
preommr|1 year ago
I think he's right about the movement, right about better monetization for open source, right about the trademark issues, and while rude, his comments are harsh truths about DHH and his work in OSS.
Obviously, they way he's handled everything has been bad - very valid to ask why he didn't act sooner about the trademark issue. And, snide comments about DHH not donating enough to charity are irrelevant. But he is right about a the core issues.
drumdance|1 year ago
mastazi|1 year ago
mastazi|1 year ago
zeruch|1 year ago
mugivarra69|1 year ago
Mencius-|1 year ago
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sureIy|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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preommr|1 year ago
throwaway48476|1 year ago
altairprime|1 year ago
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nfRfqX5n|1 year ago
jeltz|1 year ago
Why don't you read up and form your own opinion? It is just like 15-30 minutes of research.
jrflowers|1 year ago
Lalabadie|1 year ago
ceejayoz|1 year ago