159 Employees Leave Automattic After Accepting the Alignment Offer

While the controversy between Automattic and WP Engine was unfolding, social media discussions surged about whether Automattic employees not agreeing with Matt were offered an ultimatum to quit and exit with a generous payout.

https://twitter.com/kellie/status/1841210258422972536

https://twitter.com/jeffr0/status/1841585100665872569

In response, Matt Mullenweg addressed the situation in a blog post titled Automattic Alignment. He has clarified that: “It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions. So we decided to design the most generous buy-out package possible, we called it an Alignment Offer: if you resigned before 20:00 UTC on Thursday, October 3, 2024, you would receive $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher. But you’d lose access to Automattic that evening, and you wouldn’t be eligible to boomerang (what we call re-hires). HR added some extra details to sweeten the deal; we wanted to make it as enticing as possible.”

Matt revealed that 159 employees, representing 8.4% of the workforce, accepted the offer. Of these, 79.2% were part of Automattic’s Ecosystem businesses, while 18.2% came from Cosmos, working on apps like Pocket Casts, Day One, Tumblr, and Cloudup.

“It was an emotional roller coaster of a week. The day you hire someone you aren’t expecting them to resign or be fired, you’re hoping for a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Every resignation stings a bit.”, Matt added.

Automattic referred to this move as “a strategic realignment to better pursue our core values and operational goals.”

We remain deeply grateful to all our employees, past and present. For those who have chosen new paths, we sincerely wish them the best, and thank them for helping make Automattic what it is today. We emerge from this chapter with a renewed vigor and clarity in our mission.

– Automattic

159 People Accepted the Offer

In a surprising turn, the names of people leaving Automattic include Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the Executive Director of the WordPress project. “While my next steps aren’t yet clear, I hope to never be too far from this community that taught me so much.”, she said.

Other notable departures include Naoko Takano (Open Source Project Manager), Daniel Walmsley (AI Engineer and Architect), Jeffrey Pearce (Team Lead) and Reyes Martínez (Communications Wrangler & WordPress Media Corps lead). Daniel Bachhuber (head of WordPress.com) also left but posted this in LinkedIn: “I believe in Matt. Leaving Automattic for other reasons. It’s a bummer, and I will miss everyone there.”

https://twitter.com/danwalmsley/status/1841882447073706317

https://twitter.com/jeffikus/status/1842227784350859484

91.6% of Automatticians are Staying

Meanwhile, 91.6% of Automattic employees chose to stay, with many expressing support for Matt’s decisions on X.

https://twitter.com/zeldman/status/1842201921433608640

https://twitter.com/NerdwithCoffee/status/1842351786134229318

https://twitter.com/pootlepress/status/1842051172183490811

https://twitter.com/justintadlock/status/1842197703272300968

Community Response

As usual, the community remains divided, with some praising the offer’s generosity while others are worried.

https://twitter.com/awilkinson/status/1842227042256920691

https://twitter.com/FloWendelborn/status/1842072441280983440

https://twitter.com/foolstechdev/status/1842220667111932279

https://twitter.com/mnowak_eth/status/1842131124165775653

As mentioned above, 79.2% of the people who left Automattic were working on Ecosystem projects. The Marketing Team again got the short end of the stick with WordPress Media Corps’s future in doubt due to Reyes Martínez’s resignation. The coming days will provide more clarity on the effects this development has on WordPress.