She asked if he sold the shares in WP-Engine unwillingly. He said "yeah ...". Just curious if that is how it works, I doubt it. He was FORCED to sell the shares? I was more or less in his side until the takeover of the ACF slug. But I also did not know how big and powerful he actually was and how he has set himself up as a dictator in the WP ecosystem and that his company is funded by Black Rock ... I admire how Ghost is setup, its 100% non-profit. The way it should be.
From what I understand, minority shareholders typically have drag/tag along clauses. Worth reading up on if you want to understand that dynamic. Blackrock are a minority shareholder and don't have voting rights; that's a pretty big difference to their control over WPE.
Matt is the surface level smiling nice guy who is really a snake in his heart. The damage that he's done to the wordpress community in the past month is incalculable.
So wait a sec...Matt was an investor in WPEngine, was apparently open about it, profited personally from the returns and the exit, but it wasn't enough so more is wanted to go into his private equity firm and not the actual project. I'd love to know what Richard Stallman thinks.
Welp. Some of this interview will make it into the case as evidence. What a mess. Matt, no one is making me disagree with you. I just do because you're wrong.
I think Matt has a valid point, if you're benefiting from WordPress, give back in some way. But to force a company to give back, that's against the spirit of open source.
Interesting interview… Did they try to rile up their customers? For me, it felt the other way around because the community was dragged into this and asked to vote with their wallets and so forth. However, I am not a WP customer (at least directly, but indirectly as I own ACF Pro bought from Elliot), nor do I subscribe to any WP Engine newsletters or anything, so maybe I missed those attempts.
Ha! I myself thought that WP Engine was Wordpress. I've always been so confused about it. I have to say that hearing this interview, in spite of (what I thought was) bias towards WPEngine on the part of the interviewer, I'm solidly in support of WordPress. You go, Matt! The time for vulture companies preying on others must come to an end.
What are you even talking about? Matt is clearly just another sleazy CEO trying to make more money. I can’t wait to hear this interview played in court.
