"I Take No Pride in This, as It Means The...  🔗 **Source:** ["I Take No Pride in This, as It Means The...](https://twitter.com/trentlapinski/status/2098922412024717785/?rw_tt_thread=True) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: > - automattic > - matt-mullenweg > - wordpress-governance > - open-source-governance > - wp-engine-lawsuit > author: Duane Storey (quote-posting a thread by Trent Lapinski, who also replies) > source: https://twitter.com/trentlapinski/status/2098922412024717785/?rw_tt_thread=True > reference: https://twitter.com/trentlapinski/status/2098922412024717785/?rw_tt_thread=True > date created: 2026-09-13 > --- > > [!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 Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author.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 > "I take no pride in this" — Duane Storey and Trent Lapinski on the Automattic board crisis, the failure of WordPress governance, and what comes next > **Who is speaking.** The captured body has three voices in sequence. (1) Duane Storey opens by quoting Trent Lapinski's closing paragraph and adds his own commentary on governance, Morten Rand-Hendriksen's earlier efforts, the ACF/Secure Custom Fields takeover, and the Sep 30 spoliation hearing. (2) Trent Lapinski's full original thread (posted Sep 12, 2026 at 7:14 PM) is embedded: a scenario analysis of what happens if Matt Mullenweg reverses the board's leave decision, followed by financial and legal predictions. (3) Trent replies to Duane: Andrew Nacin and others also tried, but everything had to go through Matt, so "It wasn't real governance." Readers should attribute each claim to the correct speaker; the Reader author field shows Duane Storey, but most of the word count is Trent's. > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > 1. Title > 2. References (in-page) > 3. Summary > 4. Main Content and Notes > 5. References > 6. Paraphrase > 7. Newsletter > 8. Action Items > 9. Hypotheses > 10. Methodology > 11. Questions > 12. Future Research > 13. Implications > 14. Learning Styles Assessment > 15. Accessibility Assessment > 16. DEIB Assessment > 17. Logical Validity > 18. DARVO Analysis > 19. Conclusion > 20. Refactor Appendix > ## 🔗 References (in-page) > Links that actually appear in the captured body: > - Trent Lapinski profile: https://twitter.com/trentlapinski > - Trent's original thread (Sep 12, 2026, 7:14 PM): https://twitter.com/trentlapinski/status/2098852701475946687 > - Duane Storey profile: https://twitter.com/DuaneStorey > - The saved item itself (Trent's reply in the thread view): https://twitter.com/trentlapinski/status/2098922412024717785/?rw_tt_thread=True > No external documents, court filings, financial reports, or news articles are linked in the body. Every figure in the thread (83% valuation decline, the Sep 30 hearing, board composition) is asserted without a citation. > ## 📝 Summary > **What happened.** In the days after Automattic's board voted to place CEO Matt Mullenweg on leave, and after his return days later, Trent Lapinski posted a long thread laying out a worst-case chain of consequences: if Matt regained his title by replacing the board, the ousted directors (who represent large shareholders) could sue for breach of fiduciary duty or seek an injunction; Automattic's valuation has reportedly fallen 83% in five years; the WP Engine trial resumes at the end of September and, in Trent's view, the facts favor WP Engine; venture capital will avoid the company; and the only paths forward are a down-round buyer, a settlement, or a skeleton-crew survival mode. Duane Storey quote-posted the thread's closing lament and added that governance advocates such as Morten were ostracized, that one person destabilizing an ecosystem is a warning to enterprises evaluating open source, and that trust in WordPress.org was already damaged by the ACF plugin takeover. Trent replied that Andrew Nacin and others also tried to build governance, but every decision still routed through Matt. > **Why it matters.** This is a primary artifact of community sentiment during the crisis, from two long-tenured contributors rather than outside journalists. It shows how quickly the conversation moved from "who is CEO this week" to "is the project's governance model structurally broken." It also shows the emotional register: grief and anger more than analysis. > **Stakeholders.** Matt Mullenweg; the Automattic board and its investor representatives (the thread names BlackRock and Salesforce as shareholders); Automattic employees facing possible layoffs; WP Engine as litigant; WordPress.org contributors and plugin authors (the ACF precedent); enterprise adopters weighing platform risk; the wider open-source community watching a governance failure play out publicly; alternative governance efforts such as FAIR and The WPOCC. > **Risks.** The thread's predictions are almost entirely unsourced speculation, and Trent flags only one of them as such. Repeating figures like "83%" or claims about criminal exposure without verification would spread misinformation. On the other side, dismissing the thread entirely would miss a real signal: veteran contributors publicly saying they no longer trust the project's institutions. > **Bottom line.** Treat this as a sentiment and hypothesis document, not a factual account. The strongest, most defensible claim is the shared one at the end: WordPress never had governance independent of one person, and the current crisis is the bill coming due. > ## 📖 Main Content > ### 🗒️ Notes > **Structure of the capture.** Readwise stitched the thread as: Duane's quote-post text, then an embedded card of Trent's full thread, then a horizontal rule, then Trent's reply to Duane. The first paragraph (in quotation marks) is Trent's closing paragraph, quoted by Duane; it appears again near the end of Trent's thread. > **Duane's argument, in three moves.** > 1. Governance was proposed and refused. "Guys like Morten" (Morten Rand-Hendriksen, who publicly argued for a WordPress governance project around 2018 to 2019) tried and were "effectively ostracized." > 2. Reputational damage is unprecedented in speed. Twenty years of goodwill gone quickly, with spillover onto open source as a category; an enterprise evaluating open source might now hesitate. > 3. Trust in WordPress.org is already broken. The "ACF hijack" (the October 2024 takeover of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin slug on WordPress.org, republished as Secure Custom Fields) is cited as the moment trust ended. Duane expects more instability as the WP Engine lawsuit continues, especially around a Sep 30 spoliation hearing. > **Trent's argument, as a scenario tree.** > - Scenario: Matt stacks the board, fires the existing board, installs a new one, reinstates himself, fires the interim CEO. Consequence: shareholder class action; ousted directors seek an injunction. > - Financial claim: 83% valuation decline over five years, therefore revenue is likely very bad. > - Legal claim: WP Engine trial resumes end of month; facts unfavorable to Matt; possible multimillion-dollar penalties; possible criminal referral for extortion. > - Motive claim: the board wanted Matt on leave before trial to settle and save the company (labeled "just speculation"). > - Cascade: board and inner circle sue for fiduciary breach; VC blacklist; only exits are a down-round buyer, a settlement, or a skeleton crew hoarding cash; CFO was fired so payroll risk is near; more layoffs. > - Project claim: fewer developers, less leadership, AI eroding the business; WordPress must become "an agentic system," but no one can drive that and Matt would block it. > - Coda: the lament about the open web and unsolved open-source governance. > **Trent's reply.** Andrew Nacin (a former lead developer) and others also tried. Everything still had to be run by Matt, who would not approve it. "It wasn't real governance." > **What is verifiable from the body alone.** Only the existence and timing of the posts, and the speakers' opinions. Everything else requires outside sources. > ## 📚 References (primary sources preferred) > From the body (see in-page list above): Trent's thread status 2098852701475946687; the saved reply status 2098922412024717785. > Not linked in the body; listed for follow-up verification only, no URLs asserted: > - Automattic's own announcements regarding the board vote, Matt's leave, and his return (September 📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Tweets/I Take No Pride in This, as It Means The....md|"I Take No Pride in This, as It Means The... by Duane Storey]] ## Highlights - Guys like Morten tried really hard to get some type of governance in the WP ecosystem, and they were effectively ostracized for it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvsm51rc31mcykvg5ez0c)) - Note: Duane Storey: governance reformers were pushed out, not heard. - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - If I were a large enterprise, I might be having doubts about open source now seeing how one person can cause some much damage in such a short amount of time and destabilize the ecosystem.. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqw17wrr6mqndean5rr02j)) - Note: One founder-controlled project generalized to open source as a category. - Tags: fallacy/hasty-generalization - Automattic has declined in value 83% in 5 years. Their revenue is likely bad, like really bad for such a decline to happen. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqw2qbnyc03gb428jy776f)) - Note: Valuation decline does not entail revenue decline; the 83% figure is unsourced. - Tags: fallacy/non-sequitur - Matt could even be recommended for criminal charges for extortion, which could result in probation or jail time. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvzc73qaasjvn8298keq3)) - Note: Possibility presented as likelihood; no evidence of any criminal referral is offered. - Tags: fallacy/appeal-to-probability - As the Internet moves towards becoming an agentic AI Internet, WordPress’s only hope is to become an agentic system. Merely using WordPress as a data store is not enough. It has to pivot to become part of the agentic stack but there’s really no one to drive such a radical change to the project and Matt would never allow it as it breaks 20 years of legacy development. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvxqx0mghfyz40ry4szs3)) - Note: Trent Lapinski: product thesis for WordPress's future, tied to the leadership problem. - Tags: atom/literature/h3 - At the end of the day we still had to run everything by Matt and he wouldn’t approve anything. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvw2pf5jfeeen6wnefcbp)) - Note: Trent Lapinski: the core testimony that WordPress governance was nominal. - Tags: atom/literature/h2 ## New Highlights added 2026-09-19 at 6:31 PM - Guys like Morten tried really hard to get some type of governance in the WP ecosystem, and they were effectively ostracized for it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvsm51rc31mcykvg5ez0c)) - Note: Duane Storey: governance reformers were pushed out, not heard. - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - If I were a large enterprise, I might be having doubts about open source now seeing how one person can cause some much damage in such a short amount of time and destabilize the ecosystem.. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqw17wrr6mqndean5rr02j)) - Note: One founder-controlled project generalized to open source as a category. - Tags: fallacy/hasty-generalization - Automattic has declined in value 83% in 5 years. Their revenue is likely bad, like really bad for such a decline to happen. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqw2qbnyc03gb428jy776f)) - Note: Valuation decline does not entail revenue decline; the 83% figure is unsourced. - Tags: fallacy/non-sequitur - Matt could even be recommended for criminal charges for extortion, which could result in probation or jail time. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvzc73qaasjvn8298keq3)) - Note: Possibility presented as likelihood; no evidence of any criminal referral is offered. - Tags: fallacy/appeal-to-probability - As the Internet moves towards becoming an agentic AI Internet, WordPress’s only hope is to become an agentic system. Merely using WordPress as a data store is not enough. It has to pivot to become part of the agentic stack but there’s really no one to drive such a radical change to the project and Matt would never allow it as it breaks 20 years of legacy development. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvxqx0mghfyz40ry4szs3)) - Note: Trent Lapinski: product thesis for WordPress's future, tied to the leadership problem. - Tags: atom/literature/h3 - At the end of the day we still had to run everything by Matt and he wouldn’t approve anything. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m2dqvw2pf5jfeeen6wnefcbp)) - Note: Trent Lapinski: the core testimony that WordPress governance was nominal. - Tags: atom/literature/h2