3 ms·

That company sounds like a clusterfuck. Good luck attracting good talent with such dysfunctional leadership.

saghm 13d ago
Might by time for another employee buyout? https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272867/automattic-employee-buyout-wordpress-drama https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272867/automattic-empl...
neya 13d ago
A lot of WordPress enterprise users will be upset after finding out that after paying $20-100k a month, Wordpress actually poaches their employees. Just inspect a Wordpress enterprise site's response to certain endpoints using cURL or Postman, it will actually tell you to apply for Automattic. I have been meaning to write about this for a very long time.
- meric_ 13d ago
  Eh I mean this is common default no? If you inspect element on many sites it links to the career page. Reddit, discord, etc. Maybe a little distasteful since I suppose since these WordPress sites are not owned by WordPress, but I wouldn't really say it's unique or necessarily poaching
  - gonzalohm 12d ago
    One thing is doing it in a public forum and another is an enterprise product that you contracted poaching your own employees
    - m4rtink 12d ago
      Not sure how effective the poaching will be with the company in this state.
- newtonianrules 12d ago
  People pay $100k/mo for fucking Wordpress in 2026?
  - sixtyj 12d ago
    News sites can be very large - so running on Wordpress.com infrastructure can cause such amount. With cloud storage (provided by WP), additional support etc.
  - shakna 12d ago
    Some Wordpress clients are government, with all the scale and always-on-call requirements that entails.
  - KingMob 12d ago
    Because they're not paying only for Wordpress-the-software, they're paying for scalability, maintenance, etc. $100k/mo is probably cheaper than a team of high-end WP experts. Same reason a ton of us pay for AWS/GCloud/Azure instead of dealing with bare metal. (And I say this as someone running an edge fleet. If I didn't need to, I wouldn't.)
- TiredOfLife 12d ago
  Humans are not cattle
- fergie 12d ago
  Its called "free movement of labor" and its a very good thing. Arguably the reason that Silicon Valley happened in the first place.
- stavros 12d ago
  It's not poaching to post an ad that someone who works elsewhere happens to see.
- redsocksfan45 12d ago
  [dead]
- bityard 12d ago
  That doesn't sound like poaching to me? I mean, if it's a public endpoint, the person who finds it could be an independent contractor hired to work on the site, or a random person on the Internet probing the site for fun. What you describe sounds more like a cleverly hidden ad. Google and others were famous for this during silicon valley's growth phase when you could get a job as a software engineer if you had heard of Java in passing and could fog a mirror. Intent matters: a hiring campaign doesn't rise to the level of poaching unless there is some concerted effort to attract specific employees and/or talent from a specific company. Finally, poaching is a perjorative term, but the practice of hiring another company's talent (even if they are a competitor) is not illegal or unethical. Companies SHOULD have to compete against each other for top talent.
subarctic 13d ago
Too bad because they have some incredible products
- stackghost 13d ago
  All I know is Wordpress and Beeper, are any of their other products good? Like isn't WooCommerce an absolute also-ran compared to Amazon, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, etc?
  - jimmydddd 13d ago
    Not an enterprise product, but SimpleNote is great. I was happy that they bought it.
    - dofm 12d ago
      Matt famously used it himself and bought them the domain name (which was expensive) and gave it to them no-strings-attached. A more optimistic, less chaotic and exasperating time.
    - rurp 12d ago
      SimpleNote is outstanding. I've gone through countless note apps over the years and this was the only one that stuck long term. Every other option was either too complex for what I needed, got enshittified, or needless UX churn broke my workflow to an unacceptable degree.
  - sphars 13d ago
    I'm a fan of PocketCasts as my podcast app on Android. It was bought by Automattic in 2021.
    - ab5tract 12d ago
      TIL! Am I crazy or was it at one point partly owned by NPR?
      - 12d ago
darylteo 12d ago
Eh, it's not a seller's market anymore.

saghm 13d ago

Might by time for another employee buyout? https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272867/automattic-employee-buyout-wordpress-drama https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272867/automattic-empl...

neya 13d ago

A lot of WordPress enterprise users will be upset after finding out that after paying $20-100k a month, Wordpress actually poaches their employees. Just inspect a Wordpress enterprise site's response to certain endpoints using cURL or Postman, it will actually tell you to apply for Automattic. I have been meaning to write about this for a very long time.

meric_ 13d ago
Eh I mean this is common default no? If you inspect element on many sites it links to the career page. Reddit, discord, etc. Maybe a little distasteful since I suppose since these WordPress sites are not owned by WordPress, but I wouldn't really say it's unique or necessarily poaching
- gonzalohm 12d ago
  One thing is doing it in a public forum and another is an enterprise product that you contracted poaching your own employees
  - m4rtink 12d ago
    Not sure how effective the poaching will be with the company in this state.
newtonianrules 12d ago
People pay $100k/mo for fucking Wordpress in 2026?
- sixtyj 12d ago
  News sites can be very large - so running on Wordpress.com infrastructure can cause such amount. With cloud storage (provided by WP), additional support etc.
- shakna 12d ago
  Some Wordpress clients are government, with all the scale and always-on-call requirements that entails.
- KingMob 12d ago
  Because they're not paying only for Wordpress-the-software, they're paying for scalability, maintenance, etc. $100k/mo is probably cheaper than a team of high-end WP experts. Same reason a ton of us pay for AWS/GCloud/Azure instead of dealing with bare metal. (And I say this as someone running an edge fleet. If I didn't need to, I wouldn't.)
TiredOfLife 12d ago
Humans are not cattle
fergie 12d ago
Its called "free movement of labor" and its a very good thing. Arguably the reason that Silicon Valley happened in the first place.
stavros 12d ago
It's not poaching to post an ad that someone who works elsewhere happens to see.
redsocksfan45 12d ago
[dead]
bityard 12d ago
That doesn't sound like poaching to me? I mean, if it's a public endpoint, the person who finds it could be an independent contractor hired to work on the site, or a random person on the Internet probing the site for fun. What you describe sounds more like a cleverly hidden ad. Google and others were famous for this during silicon valley's growth phase when you could get a job as a software engineer if you had heard of Java in passing and could fog a mirror. Intent matters: a hiring campaign doesn't rise to the level of poaching unless there is some concerted effort to attract specific employees and/or talent from a specific company. Finally, poaching is a perjorative term, but the practice of hiring another company's talent (even if they are a competitor) is not illegal or unethical. Companies SHOULD have to compete against each other for top talent.

subarctic 13d ago

Too bad because they have some incredible products

stackghost 13d ago
All I know is Wordpress and Beeper, are any of their other products good? Like isn't WooCommerce an absolute also-ran compared to Amazon, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, etc?
- jimmydddd 13d ago
  Not an enterprise product, but SimpleNote is great. I was happy that they bought it.
  - dofm 12d ago
    Matt famously used it himself and bought them the domain name (which was expensive) and gave it to them no-strings-attached. A more optimistic, less chaotic and exasperating time.
  - rurp 12d ago
    SimpleNote is outstanding. I've gone through countless note apps over the years and this was the only one that stuck long term. Every other option was either too complex for what I needed, got enshittified, or needless UX churn broke my workflow to an unacceptable degree.
- sphars 13d ago
  I'm a fan of PocketCasts as my podcast app on Android. It was bought by Automattic in 2021.
  - ab5tract 12d ago
    TIL! Am I crazy or was it at one point partly owned by NPR?
    - 12d ago

darylteo 12d ago

Eh, it's not a seller's market anymore.