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From an outsiders perspective, Matt's claims of comment sections like this one being heavily astroturfed do sound somewhat credible. Every single one of them I

by hypfer 19d ago

From an outsiders perspective, Matt's claims of comment sections like this one being heavily astroturfed do sound somewhat credible. Every single one of them I saw so far has the same bad faith attacks, claiming that that guy's mental health would be compromised - and then nothing else other than implying that corporate processes are correct and you are to shut up. Are there real people with opinions about this? I'd like to hear them.

bayindirh 19d ago
I mean, this is not his first rodeo at that and our not first watch of these power struggles. He's clinging to what he has, and for any outsider this (or the path leading to this) doesn't look like healthy behavior. What we live through life can trigger extremely strange behaviors we didn't see before from people, so I don't think all of this can be attributed to astroturfing. Every comment section on the internet is a target for astroturfing, yet attribute everything to it, is not right.
- hypfer 19d ago
  Uh you've just now said the same in slightly different words, then closed with "you're wrong" spoken through a corporate filter. Which.. kinda doesn't really convince me. But anyway > He's clinging to what he has, and [..] this [..] doesn't look like healthy behavior. That's not something I would agree with. Can you explain why you believe that protecting "your baby" and clinging to it is seen by you as "not healthy"? From my understanding of the world, that is very healthy. Why not?
Macha 19d ago
This seems pretty easily explainable by Matt’s actions appearing to be hypocritical and antithetical to the views of people likely to comment on Internet message boards. People value stability from infrastructure providers and Matt’s antics with wordpress.org during the WPEngine dispute salted the earth for his chances of getting support in a board dispute. Even Matt’s own previous posting here did him no favours. Sometimes a broadly one sided reaction is just a broadly one sided reaction, no conspiracy needed.
- hypfer 19d ago
  > People value stability from infrastructure providers Yeah that mechanism I understand, and I do understand that this would lead to exactly this kind of politics. But.. that still means that it leads to this kind of politics, which was my point. I'm not interested in the politics. I'd like to know the reality.
  - Macha 19d ago
    The reality is that the board has the votes to remove Matt as CEO and Matt has enough shares that if the board is decided by simple 1 vote per share then he can replace them but without knowing the agreements with its investors and shareholders we don’t know if the boards mechanisms actually allow him to replace all the members. Since the company is privately traded, these aren’t published anywhere, so it’s unknowable for those of us in the peanut gallery (unless it eventually goes to court, which is likely unless those agreements are decisive).
    - hypfer 19d ago
      [flagged]
      - Macha 19d ago
        If you’re inclined to see everything as a diversion and all criticism as inorganic, then I think it’s better to admit you just want someone to confirm your views and you’re not really looking to be convinced, as much as you phrased your question that way
        hypfer 19d ago
        [flagged]
      - onli 19d ago
        What's your question? "Are there real people with opinion on this?"? Then yes, sure. My opinion matches what's the overall tenor of this thread. It's not astroturfing, mullenweg just has lost that much support.
pibaker 19d ago
Thinking everyone who disagrees with him is a part of a coordinated campaign is just classic gangstalking delusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking
- hypfer 19d ago
  Oh damn a wikipedia link drop. That's a good one. We're going to gloss over that I didn't say that, aren't we?
  - pibaker 19d ago
    If you are gonna snark anyway then why ask for real human reply at all? Let's make out in the muddy, sloppy style, shall we?
    - hypfer 19d ago
      [flagged]
madeofpalk 19d ago
Why is it not believable that people think he's a bit weird and potentially unstable?
- hypfer 19d ago
  Oh that I find believable. Very much so
CPLX 19d ago
It's because his behavior pattern is instantly recognizable as what happens when people get out of control on prescription stimulants and since those are an epidemic in the field at this point most people have seen it and know the trajectory and find it utterly exhausting.
- hypfer 19d ago
  I wouldn't rule out that it might also be that, though, this too sounds like "he's mentally ill" but phrased differently. I honestly do not see what you're saying there, but I also have no people in my life that would be using prescription stimulants. So it's not impossible that I have an experience gap there.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
ceejayoz 19d ago
> Every single one of them I saw so far has the same bad faith attacks, claiming that that guy's mental health would be compromised… That's because the substantive discussion happened in 2024 when this whole mess started. He was commenting here - which resulted in screenshots showing up in federal court filings - in deeply unwise fashion. It's just sad now.
- hypfer 19d ago
  Do you still happen to have any links there? Or pointers of phrases or similar. This would check out indeed for me, as it would invoke the same responses as an astroturfing campaign in normal people, as the whole "social cohesion" stuff would pull them towards trying to shut stuff down and re-establish coherent reality. By any means necessary and as they see fit. So that's a hypothesis that would satisfy the data given.
  - ceejayoz 19d ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=photomatt https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=photomatt Page 24, for example: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.64.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...
    - hypfer 19d ago
      Thanks! I see what you mean with "unwise", though, I would not say that it would validate the bad faith attacks I'm seeing. After all, all he did there is show his hand, which (possibly) hurt him in court. I suppose the takeaway there is that page 24 proves that his intent was to do harm, and that's why there's this counter-reaction by people that feel harmed, but that still makes stuff exactly as bad faith as it smells. But we do not need to discuss this further (unless you have further thoughts), as stuff now makes sense to me. So thanks again!
glenstein 18d ago
If you're coming to this late you may be missing the history, which is that Wordpress seemed to abuse every power at its disposal to force a third party company out of its ecosystem unless they "paid up", a demand associated with no formal process or agreement or contract of any kind which brought avalanches of negative press and a lawsuit to Wordpress. In the aftermath of that news, he personally wrote blog posts and participated in comment sections, getting deep into the weeds of arguments and going into personal attacks in ways that seemed unflatteringly blow back on him. And seemingly neutral third parties watching these events have found his actions hard to justify and he seems to have alienated a lot of the Wordpress ecosystem (though by no means all and it's hard to quantify that kind of thing). And here, if you read the article (and if the article is basically right in its details), he seems to be outrightly defying a decision of his own board in a brazen power play. I don't think unhinged is a controversial characterization of his choices both to flex power and get into personal attacks leading up to this point, and this seems like yet another entry. So try looking at the face value of the events being reported before treating the reaction like it must be astroturfing. If you don't read about it, you won't have the context to know what the comments are reacting to.
- hypfer 18d ago
  > he seems to be outrightly defying a decision of his own board in a brazen power play. There are a lot of people in this comment section repeating this as if it was an act of heresy, but I kinda do not see why one would do that? I'd like to see terms like "unhinged" to stay reserved for non-made-up structures. Stuff where someone genuinely harms other people and not just their financial wants/needs/etc. The board itself of course wants people to believe that it has power and not following its orders is wrong, but that's just.. their opinion. And they rely on someone actually believing that. It is genuinely weird to me to keep reading this, because it's normal people defending how power structures in which they are not winning work. Why would one do that? What do you care if a board is respected? I kinda get the general desire for "order" thing and all, but boards - generally speaking - do not get there through merit or a democratic mandate, nor do they act in the interest of normal people, so.. why care if he pisses his board off? Care to the degree that is being cared here, I mean. Should he be doing this? Probably not. But the immediate "victim" of it is most likely just a group of people with equally deep pockets doing exactly the same kind of brazen power play. I don't see why that would get strong emotions out of normal workers. Unless of course it's not them at all. Hence that suspicion. __ I've consulted the LLM about this, and while doing so, I've remembered that Boards usually are full of VCs, and YC is VC, so. Yeah, I can see why not respecting the board would be seen as heresy here. Weird how all the money in the world cannot buy one everything, huh?

by hypfer 19d ago

bayindirh 19d ago

I mean, this is not his first rodeo at that and our not first watch of these power struggles. He's clinging to what he has, and for any outsider this (or the path leading to this) doesn't look like healthy behavior. What we live through life can trigger extremely strange behaviors we didn't see before from people, so I don't think all of this can be attributed to astroturfing. Every comment section on the internet is a target for astroturfing, yet attribute everything to it, is not right.

hypfer 19d ago
Uh you've just now said the same in slightly different words, then closed with "you're wrong" spoken through a corporate filter. Which.. kinda doesn't really convince me. But anyway > He's clinging to what he has, and [..] this [..] doesn't look like healthy behavior. That's not something I would agree with. Can you explain why you believe that protecting "your baby" and clinging to it is seen by you as "not healthy"? From my understanding of the world, that is very healthy. Why not?

Macha 19d ago

This seems pretty easily explainable by Matt’s actions appearing to be hypocritical and antithetical to the views of people likely to comment on Internet message boards. People value stability from infrastructure providers and Matt’s antics with wordpress.org during the WPEngine dispute salted the earth for his chances of getting support in a board dispute. Even Matt’s own previous posting here did him no favours. Sometimes a broadly one sided reaction is just a broadly one sided reaction, no conspiracy needed.

hypfer 19d ago
> People value stability from infrastructure providers Yeah that mechanism I understand, and I do understand that this would lead to exactly this kind of politics. But.. that still means that it leads to this kind of politics, which was my point. I'm not interested in the politics. I'd like to know the reality.
- Macha 19d ago
  The reality is that the board has the votes to remove Matt as CEO and Matt has enough shares that if the board is decided by simple 1 vote per share then he can replace them but without knowing the agreements with its investors and shareholders we don’t know if the boards mechanisms actually allow him to replace all the members. Since the company is privately traded, these aren’t published anywhere, so it’s unknowable for those of us in the peanut gallery (unless it eventually goes to court, which is likely unless those agreements are decisive).
  - hypfer 19d ago
    [flagged]
    - Macha 19d ago
      If you’re inclined to see everything as a diversion and all criticism as inorganic, then I think it’s better to admit you just want someone to confirm your views and you’re not really looking to be convinced, as much as you phrased your question that way
      - hypfer 19d ago
        [flagged]
    - onli 19d ago
      What's your question? "Are there real people with opinion on this?"? Then yes, sure. My opinion matches what's the overall tenor of this thread. It's not astroturfing, mullenweg just has lost that much support.

pibaker 19d ago

Thinking everyone who disagrees with him is a part of a coordinated campaign is just classic gangstalking delusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking

hypfer 19d ago
Oh damn a wikipedia link drop. That's a good one. We're going to gloss over that I didn't say that, aren't we?
- pibaker 19d ago
  If you are gonna snark anyway then why ask for real human reply at all? Let's make out in the muddy, sloppy style, shall we?
  - hypfer 19d ago
    [flagged]

madeofpalk 19d ago

Why is it not believable that people think he's a bit weird and potentially unstable?

hypfer 19d ago
Oh that I find believable. Very much so

CPLX 19d ago

It's because his behavior pattern is instantly recognizable as what happens when people get out of control on prescription stimulants and since those are an epidemic in the field at this point most people have seen it and know the trajectory and find it utterly exhausting.

hypfer 19d ago
I wouldn't rule out that it might also be that, though, this too sounds like "he's mentally ill" but phrased differently. I honestly do not see what you're saying there, but I also have no people in my life that would be using prescription stimulants. So it's not impossible that I have an experience gap there.
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]

ceejayoz 19d ago

> Every single one of them I saw so far has the same bad faith attacks, claiming that that guy's mental health would be compromised… That's because the substantive discussion happened in 2024 when this whole mess started. He was commenting here - which resulted in screenshots showing up in federal court filings - in deeply unwise fashion. It's just sad now.

hypfer 19d ago
Do you still happen to have any links there? Or pointers of phrases or similar. This would check out indeed for me, as it would invoke the same responses as an astroturfing campaign in normal people, as the whole "social cohesion" stuff would pull them towards trying to shut stuff down and re-establish coherent reality. By any means necessary and as they see fit. So that's a hypothesis that would satisfy the data given.
- ceejayoz 19d ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=photomatt https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=photomatt Page 24, for example: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.64.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...
  - hypfer 19d ago
    Thanks! I see what you mean with "unwise", though, I would not say that it would validate the bad faith attacks I'm seeing. After all, all he did there is show his hand, which (possibly) hurt him in court. I suppose the takeaway there is that page 24 proves that his intent was to do harm, and that's why there's this counter-reaction by people that feel harmed, but that still makes stuff exactly as bad faith as it smells. But we do not need to discuss this further (unless you have further thoughts), as stuff now makes sense to me. So thanks again!

glenstein 18d ago

If you're coming to this late you may be missing the history, which is that Wordpress seemed to abuse every power at its disposal to force a third party company out of its ecosystem unless they "paid up", a demand associated with no formal process or agreement or contract of any kind which brought avalanches of negative press and a lawsuit to Wordpress. In the aftermath of that news, he personally wrote blog posts and participated in comment sections, getting deep into the weeds of arguments and going into personal attacks in ways that seemed unflatteringly blow back on him. And seemingly neutral third parties watching these events have found his actions hard to justify and he seems to have alienated a lot of the Wordpress ecosystem (though by no means all and it's hard to quantify that kind of thing). And here, if you read the article (and if the article is basically right in its details), he seems to be outrightly defying a decision of his own board in a brazen power play. I don't think unhinged is a controversial characterization of his choices both to flex power and get into personal attacks leading up to this point, and this seems like yet another entry. So try looking at the face value of the events being reported before treating the reaction like it must be astroturfing. If you don't read about it, you won't have the context to know what the comments are reacting to.

hypfer 18d ago
> he seems to be outrightly defying a decision of his own board in a brazen power play. There are a lot of people in this comment section repeating this as if it was an act of heresy, but I kinda do not see why one would do that? I'd like to see terms like "unhinged" to stay reserved for non-made-up structures. Stuff where someone genuinely harms other people and not just their financial wants/needs/etc. The board itself of course wants people to believe that it has power and not following its orders is wrong, but that's just.. their opinion. And they rely on someone actually believing that. It is genuinely weird to me to keep reading this, because it's normal people defending how power structures in which they are not winning work. Why would one do that? What do you care if a board is respected? I kinda get the general desire for "order" thing and all, but boards - generally speaking - do not get there through merit or a democratic mandate, nor do they act in the interest of normal people, so.. why care if he pisses his board off? Care to the degree that is being cared here, I mean. Should he be doing this? Probably not. But the immediate "victim" of it is most likely just a group of people with equally deep pockets doing exactly the same kind of brazen power play. I don't see why that would get strong emotions out of normal workers. Unless of course it's not them at all. Hence that suspicion. __ I've consulted the LLM about this, and while doing so, I've remembered that Boards usually are full of VCs, and YC is VC, so. Yeah, I can see why not respecting the board would be seen as heresy here. Weird how all the money in the world cannot buy one everything, huh?