# Content Management Systems, Technology Industry

Published articles for Content Management Systems, Technology Industry.

This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles.

## Tech CEO board reversals raise questions about independence, trust, and accountability

DevFeed: [Tech CEO board reversals raise questions about independence, trust, and accountability](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/tech-ceos-used-to-fear-their-boards-no-more-50504.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.computerworld.com/article/4221874/tech-ceos-used-to-fear-their-boards-no-more.html>)

Author: Evan Schuman

Published: 2026-09-15T10:45:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Computerworld](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/computerworld.md>)

Topics: [integrity](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/integrity.md>), [trust](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/trust.md>), [OpenAI](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/openai.md>), [WordPress](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/wordpress.md>)

Tags: [acquisition](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/acquisition.md>), [board](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/board.md>), [business](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/business.md>), [ceo](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ceo.md>), [content-management-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/content-management-systems.md>), [content-management-systems-technology-industry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/content-management-systems-technology-industry.md>), [hiring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hiring.md>), [integrity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/integrity.md>), [openai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openai.md>), [opinion](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/opinion.md>), [startup](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/startup.md>), [tech](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tech.md>), [technology-industry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/technology-industry.md>), [trust](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/trust.md>), [vc](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vc.md>), [wordpress](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/wordpress.md>)

### AI overview

An opinion article examines recent reversals by the boards of Automattic and OpenAI after their CEOs were removed. It argues that boards need genuine independence, integrity, and willingness to provide candid oversight rather than unconditional loyalty.

### Source excerpt

The colorful CEO of Automattic, which controls WordPress, was forced out last Thursday by his board of directors, which put him on a leave of absence. He used his system access to remove the accounts of the acting CEO and others -- an action that could get most employees fired. Instead, he was fully reinstated to CEO a couple of days later. It's not hard to compare this to the saga at OpenAI almost three years ago when an eerily similar series of events happened. The board fired the CEO for having repeatedly lied to it. Within a few days, the board reversed itself. A weaker historical comparison is with Steve Jobs, who was ousted from his Apple CEO role, only to later return. But Jobs at least had the decency to wait a few years while he created and ran NeXT. To be fair, boards have often been criticized for being puppets of the CEO, who often have a lot to say about who serves on the board. But that criticism doesn't hold for the first OpenAI board nor for the initial Automattic board. Some years ago, I was involved with a VC-funded startup, and we were at the stage of forming a board of directors. I was talking with the person who was to be the board chair and he needed candidates for board secretary, which is typically an attorney. That role is supposed to be a lawyer who cares about the board, as opposed to the company's general counsel, who reports into the CEO and only cares about the company. The chair said that we need someone who is trustworthy. I had the perfect candidate in mind, until I probed deeper and found that there is a vast chasm between "trustworthy" and "someone we can trust." I envisioned someone who was honest and had integrity, someone who would take their duties seriously and would tell the board the truth regardless of the implications. That turned out to be precisely what the chair did not want. He wanted someone who would vote with us regardless of their legal opinion. He didn't actually want trustworthy. He wanted blind unconditional loya