Matt Mullenweg:
Tech Arsehole of the Year

The man who never quite made it to Silicon Valley, but dearly wishes post-econonmic he did.

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to present the "Tech Arsehole of the Year" award to Matt Mullenweg, the man who decided to turn WordPress's open-source spirit into his personal vendetta playground!

In a year filled with tech bros doing tech bro things, Matt distinguished himself by taking the concept of "open source" and interpreting it as "open season" on anyone he disagrees with. His masterpiece? Calling WP Engine a "cancer to WordPress" during WordCamp US, because nothing says "professional CEO" quite like publicly slandering a major player in your ecosystem!

But wait, there's more! Not content with just verbal warfare, our winner demonstrated his commitment to "open source values" by blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org! Because apparently, the best way to run an open-source platform is to slam the door shut on people you don't like.

And when 159 of his own employees (that's 8.4% of his staff, folks!) decided they'd had enough of his shenanigans and took severance packages, did our champion of democracy pause for self-reflection? Nah, he doubled down harder than a blackjack player with a trust fund!

But the crown jewel in Matt's "How to Alienate People and Influence Nobody" campaign came this week when a California district court judge essentially told him to sit down and behave like a grown-up. The court granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction, ordering Matt and Automattic to restore access to WordPress.org and stop acting like the bouncer at an exclusive club who just got dumped.

So here's to you, Matt Mullenweg, for taking the concept of "WordPress drama" to heights that even the most dramatic Twitter thread couldn't achieve. You've shown us that when life gives you lemons, you don't make lemonade - you throw the lemons at your competitors and then block their access to the lemon tree!

And let's not forget the most impressive achievement: managing to make a court order you to play nice with others, like a kindergartener who won't share his toys. That's not just regular tech leadership, folks - that's advanced tech arseholery!

Congratulations, Matt! Your trophy is an open-source project that you can't actually block anyone from using. We'd give you a plugin to go with it, but we're worried you might revoke our repository access.

P.S. - This award ceremony is licensed under GPL, but Matt probably won't recognize that either.

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