Dave Winer in a longer post collecting thoughts on Matt Mullenweg and other things:
I don’t like that people have called him things like the Mad King. People used to say stuff like that about me. It’s a substitute for trying to understand where someone is coming from.
I’ve adopted the “mad king” phrasing in recent posts about Matt and about Automattic. I just find it amusing, a way to poke fun at the whole drama. I don’t actually think he’s crazy.
dame “But Matt has the right to control his own destiny, as you and I do, to the extent that we can.”
a nice sentiment within a vacuum, but Matt is no longer controlling his own destiny, he’s also attempting to control the destiny of numerous people and entities outside of himself
Alan Ralph While I have great respect for Dave Winer, that post comes across as more than a little tone-deaf and not-reading-the-room to me.
For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t use the term “mad king” — for one thing, it excuses his behaviour as that someone with diminished or impaired faculties. I think Matt knows EXACTLY what he’s doing, so I’m going with “man-child” because someone needs to put him in the naughty corner for a while…
