I've refrained from commenting on this post.p for several reasons.

It's fairly clear that Automattic had a hand in Matt Cutts site switching from Thesis to Genesis. Being that Matt Cutts is an influential individual and he was running his blog on Thesis which is a theme that Automattic's founder is no fan of due to well documented bad blood between himself and Chris Pearson it wouldn't be surprising if he was persuaded to switch because of this.

I would say this is a situation where he was approached... and asked to switch away from Thesis and offered to have the migration done for free if he would agree to it. So from Matt Cutts perspective it was an easy decision. Ultimately he has bigger things to worry about than what theme his blog is using, so if Automattic was willing to switch him over to Genesis and he had to do nothing thing I'm sure he said sure because its a no brainier.

I see a lot of kudos and pats on the back in the comments above. How awesome this is for Genesis, etc, But people are missing something here if you look at it from the angle I explain below as well as the bad blood I mentioned above.

If I approached every WordPress web site using a non-Gravity Forms form solution and offered to give them Gravity Forms for free AND offered to handle migrating their forms and the setup for free. Would you find this an acceptable business practice? I certainly wouldn't. I'd find it sleazy and underhanded. It's shady.

If the scenario I present above is true, the kudos and pats on the back aren't warranted. Because just like the Gravity Forms scenario I outline above, this is a sleazy and underhanded tactic designed to negatively impact someone's business just be be vindictive.

Influential people should use your product because it kicks ass and they know it kicks ass and therefore they want to use it. Not because it's been offered to them for free so they aren't using another product so that either A) them using it can be used for marketing purposes or B) you have a vendetta against a product theybarenusing so you are just being vindictive boy getting them to switch.

I know for a fact that exact scenario has happened in the theme world before precisely so theme companies could promote the fact that some big name uses their product despite the fact it wasn't purely by choice, they were persuaded and offered the product for free along with a custom design, etc. so the the company could the promote this influential person uses their theme so it must be great. Sorry, just like my Gravity Forms example above I think this is a sleazy way to market a product.

I hope the above isn't true. I hope Matt Cutts switched to Genesis because it was his idea and not a situation where he was approached because Automattic didn't want an influential person using a theme they dont like developed by a developer they don't like. But it wouldn't surprise me if that is exactly what happened.