One-twelfth of Automattic staff leave over WordPress-WP Engine spat

The dispute led to considerable debate within Automattic. As Mullenweg blogged with a certain amount of understatement, “It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions.”

To resolve the dispute internally, Mullenweg decided to pay dissenters to go away, with what he described as “the most generous buy-out package possible”: $30,000 or six months’ salary, whichever was higher. There were two catches: staff had to decide by 1 p.m. Pacific Time on Oct. 3, and there would be no possibility of getting hired back by Automattic.

By the deadline, 159 staff — 8.4% of the company’s workforce — had accepted the offer to leave, including one person who had started just two days earlier, Mullenweg wrote.