On the Surface This Doesn't Look Great  🔗 **Source:** [On the Surface This Doesn't Look Great](https://twitter.com/DuaneStorey/status/2100508721898004891/?rw_tt_thread=True) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [automattic, wp-engine-lawsuit, spoliation-hearing, executive-severance, narrative-control, corporate-governance, epistemic-humility] > author: Duane Storey > source: X (formerly Twitter) - post by Duane Storey quoting @TechCrunch > reference: https://twitter.com/TechCrunch/status/2100308521736655183 > date created: 2026-09-19 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > ## 🏷️ Title > **On the surface this doesn't look great — Duane Storey reframes the Automattic severance story as a shaped document release** > A short X post in which Duane Storey concedes that a TechCrunch report looks damaging on its face, then argues the report rests on a document release he believes Automattic shaped, enumerates three things the public does not yet know, and offers one reasoned inference about what the two executives likely expected. > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - 🔗 References (in-page) > - 📝 Summary > - 📖 Main Content (with 🗒️ Notes) > - 📚 References > - 🗣️ Paraphrase > - 📰 Newsletter > - ✅ Action Items > - 🧪 Hypotheses > - 📊 Methodology > - ❓ Questions > - 🔮 Future Research > - 💡 Implications > - 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment > - 📊 Accessibility Assessment > - 🌍 DEIB Assessment > - ✅ Logical Validity > - 🛡️ DARVO Analysis > - 🎯 Conclusion > - 🔄 Refactor Appendix > ## 🔗 References (in-page) > Every URL present in the captured body, in the order it appears. The capture is **not** uncited — an earlier reading of this document recorded it as having no links, and that was wrong. > - `https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1096066608034918401/m8wnTWsX.png` — the @TechCrunch avatar image embedded in the quoted post. > - `https://twitter.com/TechCrunch` — the TechCrunch account profile (appears twice, once as display name and once as handle). > - `https://spr.ly/6018BGTQbp` — a Sprinklr short link inside the quoted TechCrunch post. This is the link to the underlying TechCrunch article and is the single most important reference in the capture. It is a redirector, so the destination URL is not visible in the capture itself. > - `https://twitter.com/TechCrunch/status/2100308521736655183` — the permalink to the quoted TechCrunch post, captured as "Posted Sep 16, 2026 at 7:39PM". > No link appears for Storey's own post inside the body text; the document's own canonical location is the Reader capture of his post. > ## 📝 Summary > **What happened.** TechCrunch reported that Automattic's CFO, Mark Davies, and its legal chief, Andy Missan, signed each other's severance agreements while Matt Mullenweg was on leave — agreements providing a year of salary plus additional equity vesting if their departures qualify for the benefits. Duane Storey quoted that report and responded with a two-part move: first conceding that the arrangement "doesn't look great" on its face, then arguing that the underlying documents are "probably a carefully crafted document release from Automattic meant to paint things in a certain colour." > **What is being defended, and by whom.** Storey is not defending the conduct directly. He is defending the *interpretive space* around Davies and Missan — arguing that the public lacks the information needed to convict them. The defence is Storey's own; nothing in the capture indicates he speaks for either executive, for Automattic, or for anyone else. The reframing is his, and this analysis attributes it to him rather than treating it as established. > **The argument's shape.** The post runs on an explicit inventory of unknowns: what the two executives learned immediately before signing; what a spoliation hearing "happening in two weeks" will show, and what those two may have anticipated it would show; and what was happening behind the scenes that led Automattic's board to suspend Mullenweg. Against that inventory, Storey offers one positive inference with reasons attached — that the two likely expected to be fired, because the outcome was obvious to many observers and one of them was a lawyer. He closes procedurally: there is a lot still to process and likely a lot still to be revealed. > **Why it matters.** Within a commentary cycle full of confident motive attribution, this post is unusually disciplined about separating the known from the inferred. It also does real analytical work almost incidentally: if the two executives expected termination, then protective severance is ordinary self-interest rather than evidence of a scheme to engineer their own exits. That is a substantive rebuttal to a theory circulating alongside it, made without naming or attacking anyone. > **Stakeholders.** Automattic as a corporate entity and as a WordPress sponsor; its board; Mark Davies and Andy Missan as named individuals whose reputations are in play; Matt Mullenweg; WP Engine as the litigation counterparty; WordPress contributors and agencies whose livelihoods sit downstream of Automattic's stability; and journalists and commentators forming views on a partial record. > **Risks.** Two. First, the shaped-release claim is itself unevidenced, and it is the one assertion in the post that does not receive the scepticism applied to everything else — the post's method is turned outward but not inward. Second, the inventory of unknowns is unbounded. "We don't know what was happening behind the scenes" is always true of any corporate story, so used without limit it becomes a standard no evidence can ever satisfy. Storey does not push it that far here, but the move is available to anyone who borrows the framing. > **Bottom line.** A genuinely useful post: it names what is not established, it supplies one properly reasoned inference, and it points at a dated, checkable forthcoming event — the spoliation hearing — that is the only near-term thing in this entire news cycle likely to change the picture. Its one weakness is that its central reframing is asserted rather than shown. > ## 📖 Main Content > **The structural move.** The post's core method is to treat a document set as an artefact with an author and an interest rather than as a neutral window onto events. This is a correct and underused habit. Documents that reach the public during active litigation reach it because someone chose to release them, and selection is itself an editorial act. Storey applies that habit here and it is the most transferable thing in the post. > **But the specific attribution is not the same as the general principle.** "Releases are shaped" is a sound prior. "This release was shaped by Automattic to paint things in a certain colour" is a factual claim about a specific party's conduct and intent, and the capture offers nothing to support it. The capture does not establish who released the severance agreements, whether they were released at all rather than obtained, whether they surfaced through a court filing, a regulatory disclosure, a leak, or reporting work. Storey does not say how he knows. The post's scepticism is applied to the report and withheld from his own counter-explanation. > **The spoliation hearing is the post's most durable contribution.** Storey states that a spoliation hearing is "happening in two weeks." Spoliation refers to the destruction, alteration, or failure to preserve evidence relevant to litigation; a spoliation hearing is where a court considers whether that occurred and what sanction or adverse inference should follow. This is the only specific, dated, forthcoming proceeding named anywhere in the surrounding commentary, and it is checkable. Whatever one makes of the rest of the post, this is the item to diarise. > **The one reasoned inference.** Storey argues the two executives likely knew they would be fired, giving two grounds: the outcome was obvious to many observers, and one of the two was a lawyer. Both grounds are independent of any inside knowledge — they rest on general predictability and professional competence, not on privileged information Storey would have to claim access to. That makes this the sturdiest piece of reasoning in the post. > **What that inference does to competing theories.** It quietly undercuts th On the surface this doesn't look great. But we also have to remember this is probably a carefully crafted document release from Automattic meant to paint things in a certain colour. We don't know what these two learned right before they did this. We don't know what the spoliation hearing that's happening in two weeks will show (and what these two people maybe knew it would show). We don't know what was happening behind the scenes that led to the board suspending Matt. It does seems likely they knew the end result would be them getting fired, as it seems obvious to lots of people and one of them was a lawyer. So there is lots to process still and likely still lots to be revealed.  [TechCrunch](https://twitter.com/TechCrunch) [@TechCrunch](https://twitter.com/TechCrunch) CFO Mark Davies and legal chief Andy Missan signed each other’s severance agreements while Matt Mullenweg was on leave, providing a year of salary and additional equity vesting if their departures qualify for the benefits. [spr.ly/6018BGTQbp](https://spr.ly/6018BGTQbp) [Posted Sep 16, 2026 at 7:39PM](https://twitter.com/TechCrunch/status/2100308521736655183), On the Surface This Doesn't Look Great, Duane Storey, 01m2qjs2q5kjg5q0fxzmtv3h4b.