Matt Mullenweg Says "The Wheels Have Fallen Off" in WordPress

slater•about 3 hours ago

Big "we're just trying to find the guy who did this" energy

ilamont•about 2 hours ago

He said open source norms intended to protect the integrity of the project, including public discussion over calls, broad consensus before decisions, and scheduling that accommodated global time zones, had created a culture that made it functionally impossible to resolve even minor disputes without a weeks-long Slack thread and a cast of dozens. ... He acknowledged he had created many of the structures he was now criticizing. In stepping back from day-to-day leadership, he said, he had deliberately delegated decision-making broadly and built committees and governance layers.

This is not just an open source thing, or a Wordpress thing. I've seen it in nonprofit operations where committees take ages to make simple, sensible decisions (and sometimes still get it wrong!).

I suspect it's an issue in large companies that operate by consensus or are hidebound to authority and protocol. How many large companies in Silicon Valley make a point of saying they want to "move like a startup"?

altairprime•about 1 hour ago

Nearly the same as the number of large companies in Silicon Valley who want everyone to feel good about a decision internally but don’t care in the slightest about how outsiders feel about it. Matt unfortunately makes a solid point, weakened as it may be by his presentation: consensus-based project management is around two orders of magnitude slower than authority-based project management, as currently implemented by most open-source and open-source-like projects. Ghostty is a good example of authority-based project management, and advances far more efficiently towards its goals than Wordpress. I will freely admit that I’m biased to assign zero relevance to people’s emotional hangups about having to disagree and commit; having seen that catering to soothing ego dramas in project processes, rather than directing those with personal drama to professional counseling out-of-band from the project itself, serves up a catastrophic derail for any serious effort, I now have zero tolerance for “we will never agree, we haven’t the courage to decide, and we have not assigned any individual as final decision-maker”.

Regarding the main story’s point, I think the original concern raised (the committee balked while a paid employee got lightning-quick approval) is correctly addressed by focusing attention upon consensus-based project management as a defect in short- and medium-term work. It’s the right approach for long-term work — otherwise you get yanked around as priorities shift in the wind by a shifty leader (see also Tesla) — but it’s the wrong approach for making any decisions in less than a year of consideration.

chiefalchemist•about 2 hours ago

Perhaps. But issue here is the guy doing the critique is the guy with A LOT of power. There is no “we,” not in the context of this type of rant.

Leader create more / new leaders. That isn’t happening. MM has only himself to blame

chiefalchemist•about 2 hours ago

Typical, Matt “NPD” Mullenweg. Who’s surprised at this point?

We? It’s not we. When leadership speaks it should be accountable (<<< edit. Fixed autocorrect error) If not, by definition, that’s not leadership. This isn’t the first time - nor will it be the last - MM shamelessly shows his true colors.

Mullenweg has created a culture of groupthink. But that’s what cult leaders do… Surround themselves with “yes’ers.” He’s upset because his gaslighting has run its course and there’s a lack of new cult members willing to drink his Kool Aid. He’s upset cause he’s loved to beat the quantity drum (read: market share) and now the market is finding quality elsewhere.

Sadly, this won’t be his last rant.

Matt Mullenweg Says "The Wheels Have Fallen Off" in WordPress

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