Hacker News Reader

Comment by _bent | Hacker News Reader

From Mullenwegs personal website (https://ma.tt)

> Afterward, I also privately shared with [ThePrimeagen] the cell phone for Heather Brunner, the WP Engine CEO, so she can hop on or debate these points. As far as I’ve heard she hasn’t responded. Why is WP Engine scared of talking to journalists live?

this is not normal.

View on HN

This one really rubbed me the wrong way: https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/

> I have kept my personal philanthropy private until now.

> This is something I’ve tried to keep quiet, because true philanthropy isn’t about recognition.

...

> If Lee Wittlinger, who controls Silver Lake’s investments in the WordPress ecosystem, or Heather Brunner, the CEO of WP Engine, would like to publish their charitable contributions over the past 12 years, they are welcome to do so.

Is he trying to avoid turning charity into a pissing contest, or is he trying to use his affluence to shame a competitor? This guy literally can't keep his story straight over the course of a single blog post.

I'm also very curious, given his other statements and how he seems to conflate actions of the foundation, automattic, his own person, and wordpress.org, whether these contributions are his or one of theirs. And to what causes, at that; can you give to your own foundation, I wonder?

The contributions are legit. Despite his claim to have never spoken publicly about his contributions before, he has spoken about them (when it was convenient to make a point about his moral superiority). He donated hundreds of thousands per year to the Apache Foundation, for example. Additionally the WordPress Foundation’s financials are public, they don’t receive many donations (tens of thousands per year).

Huh, that's very interesting - https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...

I though part of Matt's point was that Automattic "gave back" to the foundation?

The WordPress Foundation is irrelevant to WordPress itself, it just holds events. The WordPress project is owned by Matt and that’s what Automattic donates to (in the form of Automattic employees working roughly 4k hours per week on the WordPress project). There’s also the money spent on running WordPress.org by Automattic but that’s entirely opaque (nobody knows how much it is, although it’s claimed to be millions).

Calling Prime a journalist even by implication is hysterically funny.

The thing is that none of this matters. This is what happens when you get too zoomed in on the tiny little island you live on and make a total ass of yourself.

A sad but seemingly near-perfect example of the elitism / privilege that comes from living in a bubble and not knowing it.

At least give Heather a few days to respond/engage, given the big-ass-drama that Matt created.

She shouldn't be engaging with or responding to ThePrimeagen at all, he is a jackass who solely appeals to ignorant young developers: https://youtube.com/@ThePrimeagen/videos

He is not even close to a journalist, he is a dumb tech bro. I hope Heather blocked his number. This is insanely scummy and stupid behavior from Mullenweg.

With nearly half a million followers, it does make him a journalist in the sense of "wielder of the 4th power". (But perhaps this only makes matters worse, depending on how he uses that power.)

Yeah. A journalist like Andrew Tate.

I looked through that list of videos and nothing jumps out as me. It seems to be run-of-the-mill tech content. Not very useful, not really damaging either

What if Trinidad changed residency requirements for its TLD? ...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com