In October, San Francisco tech company Automattic saw a dramatic shakeup, with CEO Matt Mullenweg offering his employees $30,000 each if they promptly agreed to quit. Now, a chunk of the staff that declined the offer are being displayn the door.
Wednesday, Mullenweg announced that he’s laying off 16% of Automattic’s workforce in an email to employees now published online. He didn’t reveal a specific number of cuts, but the company’s listed headcount on its website dropped this week by 279, to 1,495.
His email stated Automattic, which owns web hosting site WordPress.com as well as Tumblr, Longreads and other apps and WordPress-related tools, is at a “crossroads.” Mullenweg wrote that Automattic’s revenue is growing, but implied that a “highly competitive market” and rapid technological evolution are forcing his hand.
“To support our customers and products, we must improve our productivity, profitability, and capacity to invest,” he wrote. The restructuring effort, Mullenweg wrote, will see Automattic “become more agile and responsive” and “focus on product quality, doing fewer things better.”
Laid-off “Automatticians” will receive severance pay and benefits, the email stated, but it’s unclear how much. Automattic spokesperson Chfinisha Ngak declined to answer SFGATE’s questions, instead referring to the published email.
The corporatized calm of Mullenweg’s new layoff stands in stark contrast to his purge back in October. His acquireout offers at the time came amid a contentious spat with WP Engine, a competitor that, like Automattic, supports customers apply the open-source WordPress software. The companies hashed it out on the public internet and with cease-and-desist letters, as SFGATE reported.
Mullenweg wrote on his blog at the time that, as the conflict mounted, “it became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions.” So, he wrote, he designed “the most generous acquire-out package possible,” calling it an “Alignment Offer.” Workers who resigned before his deadline would obtain $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever was larger. He wrote that 159 people took the offer, 18 of whom had been creating more than $200,000 a year.
Now, a couple hundred people who stuck with Mullenweg through that well-paying drama are losing their spots at the company. On Wednesday and Thursday, ex-Automattic workers flooded onto LinkedIn with “#OpenToWork” posts and, in some cases, mournful words about the layoff.
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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