While the text announcing the end of Typepad is anonymous, let us look at what persons/groups could have taken this decision and are responsible for the caused damages?
Is it Sharon Rowlands who heads Newfold Digital that seems to be the owner of Typepad? Newfold is based on Jacksonville, FL but Typepad is nowhere mentioned on their site. Here is what AI for Google had to say:
"TypePad is owned by Newfold Digital, which acquired it when it merged with Web.com in 2021. Newfold Digital was formerly known as Endurance International Group, which had acquired TypePad from SAY Media." Web.com had been bought by Siris and Clearlake for about $2 billion in 2018.
Newfold Digital is a joint venture between hedge funds Clearlake Capital and Siris Capital Group. As Google AI writes:
Newfold Digital is co-owned by the private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group and Siris Capital Group. Newfold Digital was formed in 2021 when Clearlake Capital completed its acquisition of Endurance International Group and, in partnership with Siris Capital, combined it with Web.com Group to create the new company.
Some people don't like Newfold Digital (understatement).
Clearlake Capital Group is headquartered in Santa Monica. They just acquired Dun and Bradstreet. In case you want to stage a protest, their location is:
233 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 800,
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Their leaders and co-founders are according to wiki: Bedhad Eghbali, married to Julia Harris in 2014, lives in a new mansion,
and José E. Feliciano, also a philanthropist.
Interestingly the 2 billionaire co-founders and their spouses were celebrated by the independent schools alliance for their philanthropy. Why didn't this goodwill extend to the Typepad users? Didn't they deserve some respect and some support?
A newcomer Tasha Pelio seems to be now in charge of communications (and marketing). I emailed her via Linkedin. Her boss had been recently interviewed on Bloomberg. Maybe he could be invited again to talk about Typepad's destruction? What about reconsidering such an unwise decision?
More to come about Siris Capital. Taking a short break.
Feel free to contact all those folks.
Digging a bit more:
According to Forbes, Feliciano has a net worth of $3.8 billion as of January 2024.
Clearlake Capital Group co-founder Jose Feliciano and his wife, musical artist Kwanza Jones, have donated $20 million to Princeton University to construct two new dormitories at their alma mater that will be named after the two donors.
About SIRIS Capital founders : Frank Baker, Peter Berger, Jeffrey Hendren
Besides their profiles on their site, I found nothing on Linkedin (they posted nothing)
Siris has offices in New York and West Palm Beach.
New York
825 Third Avenue
Suite 2850
New York, NY 10022
Phillips Point West Tower
777 S. Flagler Drive
Suite 1400
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
General Information
info@siris.com
Mr. Frank Baker is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Siris. Together with Peter Berger and Jeffrey Hendren, he launched Siris in 2011 and helped establish the Firm’s investment strategy, which focuses on driving value creation in mature technology companies with mission-critical products and services, facing industry changes or other significant transitions. Since its founding, Siris has raised more than $5.9 billion of cumulative capital commitments over three institutional funds, and Mr. Baker has helped oversee the Firm’s platform equity investments, in addition to non-control investments. Prior to founding Siris, Mr. Baker was a Managing Director at Ripplewood Holdings LLC, a global private equity firm. He started his career in the mergers and acquisitions group of Goldman Sachs and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago. Mr. Baker currently serves as a trustee of the University of Chicago and has been a major supporter of the university’s New Leaders Odyssey Scholarships. Mr. Baker is chairman of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and a board member of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity.
Mr. Peter Berger is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Siris. Together with Frank Baker and Jeffrey Hendren, he launched Siris in 2011 and helped establish the Firm’s investment strategy, which focuses on driving value creation in mature technology companies with mission-critical products and services, facing industry changes or other significant transitions. Since its founding, Siris has raised more than $5.9 billion of cumulative capital commitments over three institutional funds, and Mr. Berger has helped oversee the Firm’s platform equity investments, in addition to non-control investments. Previously, Mr. Berger was a founding member and Managing Director of Ripplewood Holdings LLC, a global private equity firm. Mr. Berger was also a Senior Partner and Global Head of the Corporate Finance Group at Arthur Andersen. Prior to that, Mr. Berger was a Managing Director at Bear Stearns’ investment bank. Mr. Berger has an M.B.A from Columbia University School of Business and a B.Sc. from Boston University. Mr. Berger is a frequent guest lecturer at Columbia University School of Business and serves on the Board of Directors of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Mr. Jeffrey Hendren is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Siris. Together with Frank Baker and Peter Berger, he launched Siris in 2011 and helped establish the Firm’s investment strategy, which focuses on driving value creation in mature technology companies with mission-critical products and services, facing industry changes or other significant transitions. Since its founding, Siris has raised more than $5.9 billion of cumulative capital commitments over three institutional funds, and Mr. Hendren has helped oversee the Firm’s platform equity investments, in addition to non-control investments. Prior to founding Siris, Mr. Hendren served as a Managing Director at Ripplewood Holdings LLC, a global private equity firm. Mr. Hendren started his career at Georgia Pacific and was a member of the mergers and acquisitions group of Goldman Sachs. Mr. Hendren earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.Sc. from Indiana University.
And look at Newfold's declaration of Values !
Focus on the customer, always
Customer focus is deeply embedded in our mindset and behaviors, guiding us in all that we do. We exist because our customers trust us with their online needs, and we take their trust very seriously. We know that we all impact customers through our work. That knowledge inspires us to always act with integrity, listen to the customer’s voice and push for the highest professional standards to reliably meet their expectations.
Act as one team to deliver exceptional results
Our people are our greatest resource, and they achieve extraordinary results when they work together as one global force. With a shared one-team mindset, we get things done for our customers and have a good time doing it. We are committed to delivering exceptional results for our customers because their success goes hand-in-hand with ours.
Demonstrate passion for excellence
We are driven by our passion for helping small businesses thrive online, recognizing that being a "good" company isn’t enough. We enjoy doing everything to the best of our ability and we are committed to the pursuit of excellence in every aspect of our roles. Our passion for excellence drives us to better serve our customers, to deepen our knowledge and to always put forth our finest effort. This is how we become the best!
Foster a sense of belonging
We represent a company where people from all different cultures, backgrounds and locations work together with confidence and empathy. As individuals we may have different perspectives and communications styles, but we all feel safe bringing our authentic selves to work and we like to have fun along the way. We encourage openness and honesty, and we thrive in the warmth of compassion, humor, kindness and respect. It is our constant desire to be inclusive and to honor unique talents and ways of seeing the world. The environment of belonging we create establishes a winning culture, breeds innovation and yields strong team performances.
Hey man, this sucks beyond compare, but I don't think you should despair or fork over $5k for carrying over your data.
I see from here https://firstsiteguide.com/move-movabletype-and-typepad-to-wordpress/
that typepad actually has an export function?
Worst case scenario, with a bit of tinkering and some help from LLMs, I think you could make a script to scrape everything, bring everything to JSON and then reimport into Wordpress.