Chris built it. Geoff was the chief editor and had been with CSS Tricks for half its lifetime (i.e. seven years) when Chris sold it to Digital Ocean and left. Pretending he was just "an employee" is seriously underselling what this layoff means.

Yes, Chris leaving caused more damage to CSS Tricks than Geoff being laid off. But Geoff being laid off is the killing blow to what CSS Tricks used to be. I'm not the first person to say this: https://zellwk.com/blog/spirit-of-css-tricks/