WordPress to fire 16% of its employees

[Shawn Gossman]

Why We’re Making Changes​

We have reached an important crossroads. While our revenue continues to grow, Automattic operates in a highly competitive market, and technology is evolving at unprecedented levels. To support our customers and products, we must improve our productivity, profitability, and capacity to invest.

As difficult as this decision has been, we are restructuring the company to:

• Become more agile and responsive.
• Break down silos that have created inefficiencies.
• Focus on product quality, doing fewer things better.
• Ensure a viable financial model for long-term success.

Source/Full Article: Restructuring Announcement

I wonder if WPEngine's lawsuit has anything to do with it, too?

 

[Cpvr]

I believe the lawsuit might have something to do with it. I found a post by one of their staff members on Linkedin. The lawsuit is really hurting their bottomline.

I joined Automattic in 2021, and I’ve been privileged to work alongside… | Bohdan Kit | 16 comments

I joined Automattic in 2021, and I’ve been privileged to work alongside some of the most dedicated and talented professionals in the industry. Many of these folks have tackled the most demanding business challenges in tech. They were building products for hundreds of millions of users, pushing...

www.linkedin.com

 

[Tracy]

It probably had some to do with it... but a lot of that may be due to the economy.
I know a few folks that were running their sites on some offerings and they are getting where they can no longer afford to do so as beans & rice are more important to them than running a web site.
If I had a larger dedicated server and was using cPanel (yech spit) I would have offered them a hosting alternative.
But I currently have 4 different VPS instances and 1 dedicated server, and they are all devoted to the setups that they use and I really prefer to not go down the cPanel/WHM rabbit hole since I don't need it. I have my VPS/dedicated instances for my sites, then a dedicated VPS instance for email delivery for all my domains other than 1 which still uses SES.