from Hacker News

Mary Hubbard New Executive Director of Wordpress.org

by program on 10/8/24, 7:38 PM with 81 comments

• by legitster on 10/8/24, 8:21 PM

  At this point, I am not even sure what Wordpress.org is anymore other than a marketing department for Automattic. It's hard to know if this is a real position with real people reporting to it or if the entire org is a paper department.

• by DonnieBurger on 10/8/24, 9:06 PM

  Apparently Automattic states she's back working for them: https://x.com/automattic/status/1843750645037445200

  So then what is WordPress.org in this context?

• by jaredcwhite on 10/8/24, 11:05 PM

  Does Mary Hubbard have the ability to kick Matt Mullenweg out of the org when he implodes? If not, she's not really an executive director of anything, but merely a puppet.

  I feel like I've seen this entire song and dance routine before with the "Rails Foundation" ­— aka a cozy insiders club built to prop up DHH and his worldview. I find all of this stuff distasteful and not at all in keeping with the spirit of open source.

• by heymikebal on 10/10/24, 5:55 PM

  I reported up to Mary for a while at Automattic and she's a fantastic leader with low/no tolerance for drama or egos. I think .org is lucky to have her and I'm hopeful she'll bring true product leadership and perspective to it.

• by photomatt on 10/8/24, 8:16 PM

  I'm very excited to have Mary on board. :)