Fireship pointed out that the board members gave themselves a generous severance package in the very brief interim, so that was very possibly the whole plan.
Yeah, if Mullenweg really did control a majority of the voting shares, the previous board are the villains in this story no matter what you think of Mullenweg.
I'm surprised anyone still uses wordpress after this whole sh!tshow, but outside HN folks probably don't even know. Just reading about it about it puts me off from the product and company.
Yeah, I'm left-swiping anything that involves working on it, outside of maybe being interested in helping people migrate to anything else. I don't know enough PHP to maintain one anyway, don't like what little of the language I do have exposure to, and want nothing to do with this toxic ecosystem.
I did plenty of WP back in the day and I agree, historically, but each of the strong answers I had in my mind (db integration, editor, plugins, themes) are weakened substantially by the AI agents' ability to port a working site to a new framework. I totally agree for normal users still but for devs taking jobs on this do you think the barriers to switching have come down in size?
its getting buy-in, especially from people entrenched in their workflows, convincing management and sometimes legal depending on what plugins are being used.
It says he has 84% of the voting shares. Is there any possible way that the board could have been successful? Regardless of Mullenberg, (and I know he's controversial) a coup that is pre-ordained to fail seems like value destroying negligence.
They could have felt they were doing the right thing, and making a public statement of the situation, but knew it was a bit of a kamikaze tactic and so made it more painful for when the eventual backlash occurs.
Wordpress does not seem long for this world. How much of the Wordpress ecosystem is pure wasted resources, trying to be accommodating for all possibilities? As people see how easy Claude or Codex makes it to get off flat price Wordpress hosting and on to usage based platforms like Vercel, Wordpress usage will fade out. Feels like bloatware has no place in they coming world of AI customized software builds.
Most of the organizations/departments running wordpress aren't interested in customized software builds and all of the infrastructure that requires. They want something they can pay a simple monthly fee for, and host it with a company that deals with security, backup, etc.
It's an HDR image, I think.[0] At the moment, only some browsers show it as brighter—Firefox on macOS, for example, doesn't support HDR images and I had to open the page in Safari to see it for myself.
Apparently corporate structure gave him power over the board. Historically this kind of structure was considered undesirable and illegal in a public company, but beginning in the 2000s there was this idea that "visionary founders" should be able to demand absolute control, ex: Zuckerberg
Being on the board is a Sisyphean effort based on the weighted voting setup. Some seem to be slower to realize this. At that point, they could quit and walk away with nothing, or as others have suggested, this could have been done deliberately to at least get a payday on the way out.
Fireship pointed out that the board members gave themselves a generous severance package in the very brief interim, so that was very possibly the whole plan.
Yeah, if Mullenweg really did control a majority of the voting shares, the previous board are the villains in this story no matter what you think of Mullenweg.
That was my guess:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49692654
I'm surprised anyone still uses wordpress after this whole sh!tshow, but outside HN folks probably don't even know. Just reading about it about it puts me off from the product and company.
If I had to stop using all the software whose politics I find problematic I would have to earn a living breaking rocks.
Deciding to not use Wordpress isn’t that hard though
Yeah, I'm left-swiping anything that involves working on it, outside of maybe being interested in helping people migrate to anything else. I don't know enough PHP to maintain one anyway, don't like what little of the language I do have exposure to, and want nothing to do with this toxic ecosystem.
its also hard to move off of
What makes it hard, these days?
I did plenty of WP back in the day and I agree, historically, but each of the strong answers I had in my mind (db integration, editor, plugins, themes) are weakened substantially by the AI agents' ability to port a working site to a new framework. I totally agree for normal users still but for devs taking jobs on this do you think the barriers to switching have come down in size?
its getting buy-in, especially from people entrenched in their workflows, convincing management and sometimes legal depending on what plugins are being used.
It certainly is. But I won't be recommending it for new projects. Imagine how bad that would make you look.
It says he has 84% of the voting shares. Is there any possible way that the board could have been successful? Regardless of Mullenberg, (and I know he's controversial) a coup that is pre-ordained to fail seems like value destroying negligence.
They could have known they wouldn't succeed but they could have decided their fiduciary duty requires them to either try or resign.
Didn't they craft themselves a nice golden parachute if fired? Then proceeded to kick off events that would guarantee their dismissal?
That's less fiduciary duty and more hacking a payday.
> That's less fiduciary duty and more hacking a payday.
A large golden parachute for firing a board member could be a disincentive mechanism to do it: a 'poison pill' of a kind.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_rights_plan
They could have felt they were doing the right thing, and making a public statement of the situation, but knew it was a bit of a kamikaze tactic and so made it more painful for when the eventual backlash occurs.
Getting out of a toxic job while failing up. Business can be strange sometimes.
Yeah the minority share holders can’t sue them for not trying to do their job even if it lead to them getting fired. (They could have quit too)
If they truly believe the CEO was destroying the company/its value.
Wordpress does not seem long for this world. How much of the Wordpress ecosystem is pure wasted resources, trying to be accommodating for all possibilities? As people see how easy Claude or Codex makes it to get off flat price Wordpress hosting and on to usage based platforms like Vercel, Wordpress usage will fade out. Feels like bloatware has no place in they coming world of AI customized software builds.
Most of the organizations/departments running wordpress aren't interested in customized software builds and all of the infrastructure that requires. They want something they can pay a simple monthly fee for, and host it with a company that deals with security, backup, etc.
Looks like the Altman Maneuver...
1. Wow his profile picture is so extremely fluorescent
2. I guess I should move my blog off Wordpress
How the hell does this look like it is burning a hole in my screen?
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1998201848008679424/OGH...
It's an HDR image, I think.[0] At the moment, only some browsers show it as brighter—Firefox on macOS, for example, doesn't support HDR images and I had to open the page in Safari to see it for myself.
[0] see, for example, this submission from the front page a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49402521.
Come at the king you best not miss...
How does a CEO pull off resisting an ouster and firing the board?
Apparently corporate structure gave him power over the board. Historically this kind of structure was considered undesirable and illegal in a public company, but beginning in the 2000s there was this idea that "visionary founders" should be able to demand absolute control, ex: Zuckerberg
By personally owning 84% of the voting shares. This coup was doomed to fail from the start.
Being on the board is a Sisyphean effort based on the weighted voting setup. Some seem to be slower to realize this. At that point, they could quit and walk away with nothing, or as others have suggested, this could have been done deliberately to at least get a payday on the way out.
The same way Mark Zuckerburg does - he maintains majority control.