Episode 81: Matt Mullenweg – #WorthIt

Today, Brad and Pippin will be talking to Matt Mullenweg. Matt is the founder of WordPress and the CEO of Automattic. We will be talking about the history of Automattic and what Matt does in his spare time. We’ll also talk about what Matt feels is not talked about enough inside of WordPress.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

Matt’s announcement that he will be leading WordPress development: how the CEO of such a large company can lead this huge open source project.

The tipping point where Matt decided he wanted to get back into the development side.

Why Matt thinks there has been no progress on powering the WP Admin by the REST API and why this is one of his priorities.

What Matt would like to see happen with the WP Admin to make it most successful.

What Automattic looked like in its early days when the team was only a handful of people, as well as what Matt would change if he could go back in time.

How Matt recommends people learn about management and communication.

What Matt chooses to work on when he’s working on code and why.

The things that Matt is most concerned about today.

What Matt feels is lacking attention and interest in the WordPress world.

Links and Resources:

Automattic

Matt on Linkedin

Harvard Business Review

Andreessen Horowitz podcast

Building Jarvis – Mark Zuckerberg blog post

Ubiquiti Unify

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Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Apply Filters, the podcast all about WordPress development. Now here’s your hosts, Pippin Williamson and Brad Touesnard.

PIPPIN: Welcome back to Episode 81 of Apply Filters. During this episode Brad and I were joined by a very special guest, Matt Mullenweg, the cofounder of WordPress and the CEO of Automattic.

In this conversation we talked a bit about Matt’s recent role as a WordPress development lead and how the progress of the REST API, the new editor, and the other focus features are coming along in 2017. We’re also able to touch on some of the history of Automattic and how it’s changed over the years and look a little bit at what Matt chooses to work on when he’s able to find a little bit of time to code.

At the end, we touch a little bit on what Matt feels is not talked about enough inside of WordPress. What are some of the conversations that need to happen? Listen in to our discussion with Matt Mollenweg.

Mr. Matt Mollenweg, thank you for joining us today.

MATT: Glad to be here today.

PIPPIN: All right, so we’re going to have a number of questions for you. Mr. Brad, do you want to start us off?

BRAD: Yeah, let’s start off. Six months ago at WordCamp U.S., you made a big announcement that you were starting to lead the WordPress development again. I think people are pretty excited about it, but there was some skepticism as well. I was wondering, can a CEO of a 500+ person company also lead this huge, open source project? Matt, is it possible? Are you okay over there?

MATT: It’s definitely, you know, prior, over kind of the year prior to taking that over, I did make some changes to make it more possible, to make more time because it does take a good amount of time. I want to make sure that, just personally, I had set aside that time. That’s why, for example, I stopped doing new investments through Audrey Capital because I need to make the time to essentially invest in the WordPress community.

In terms of how it’s going is, I think it — I’ve been very happy with it thus far. There’s a great set of folks. The focus leads have been really fantastic to work with, and that’s part of the key to how this model is going to work. Incremental, you know, when you think about it, I’m already running something that’s over 550 people, so adding an additional 20 to 40 people sort of working with to make some cool things happen actually isn’t that different from what I do, what I spen