Given what I know of the situation (which admittedly isn't much), wouldn't the best course of action be to shitcan the CEO?
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if so, that's what we in the narcissist-identifying business call a "tell".
My understanding is that the investors signed proxy voting rights over to Matt. They are mostly ordinary shares, and may be revocable. [1]
If that wasn't enough of a tell, his behavior in the last few months spelled it out clearly, circled the relevant parts with a big fat red marker, and installed a blinking neon sign saying "narcissist".
Justifiable evidence of Matt Mullenweg's unhealthy/excessive narcissism only surfaced within the past year or so (I'm fuzzy on the timeline, cut me some slack ya?). Automattic the company has been so named for, goodness, close to twenty years now.
It could be Matt's been a narcissist from the start. But people also change and not always for the better so maybe he became a "narcissist" much later in life and his chosen company name just so conveniently fell into the narrative.
There are CEOs in bigger spotlights with a bigger case for narcissism who don't put their names on any of their companies (emphasis on the plurality). One of them has a name with a similar inflection pattern to other well-known albeit fictional narcissist, Tony Stark.
I don't know what "Automattic" as a company name says about Matt as a person. I'll tell you what it is though: a damn good pun, one I would gladly score myself given the chance.
Probably apocryphal. A lot of people these days only know it from Star Wars.
to decide whether it is actually a tell, we need to look at statistics of company names containing references to the owners/founders and their behavior. and i don't think that statistic bears out. naming your company after yourself is the traditional thing to do. "automattic" is just on the more clever side.
the tradition is changing only because it is becoming more and more popular to name your company after the product you are selling. now, putting your name into the product name, that maybe could be a tell. but even here there are exceptions: debian for example.
And he's full of himself and completely wrong in this crusade he launched for some reason, completely indefensible acts left & right for over a year.
Both true.
Presumably, the real world is a bit more nuanced than that.
There is no reason why you cannot run a company for different motivations than "get as rich as possible" while still accepting investments from people whose sole motivation is "get as rich as possible". While difficult, it is possible to align people even when they have different motivations.
Conversely, investors can be mission-driven or otherwise aligned with you on something other than "maximize my return," but those investors rarely give you the best price.