> Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine.
Automattic has over 1,700 employees. [0] They had more than 1,900 before the buyouts and departures. [1] With that many people, I’m sort of surprised that they only had around 100 full time staff working on WordPress core.
I thought I read a comment somewhere in all of this where he said that he was actually doing coding, yes, but (a) I could well be mistaken and (b) he could well have been talking rubbish.
I think you misinterpreted him funding development. Read the linked article. Should clear you up. He was funding (via Automattic) an estimated 4k+ hours of work per week and is cutting that back to 45. Not himself coding but people that work for him.
> Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine.
source: https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons...