In this episode, Malcom Peralty and I catch you up on the news of the week and there was a ton this week. We start off by sharing what the last week has been like for both of us. Tough going, to say the least. We then dive into the LearnDash acquisition by LiquidWeb and StellarWP. In addition to acquiring LearnDash, Chris Lema announced that he is moving into a General Manager role for the product. We talked a bit about how StellarWP is acquiring companies and maintaining their autonomy vs migrating singular products into a larger offering.

We transitioned into the news that Pippin Williamson has retired from WordPress after Awesome Motive acquired Sandhills Development. We spent quite a while discussing this acquisition, including the controversial take on whether Awesome Motive will use the sales data from EDD users and translate that into in-house products to directly compete against customers. I don’t think it’s likely but it’s definitely a topic worthy of discussion.

To round out the show, I offer a heartfelt congratulations to the team that produces the WPwatercooler podcast. They’re celebrating 9 years and 400 episodes. Longevity is earned, not bought and they’ve certainly earned it.

Stories Discussed:

StellarWP Welcomes LearnDash to the FamilyA Bright Future: SomewhereWarm Joins WooCommercePippin Williamson Retires From WordPressPodcasting about WordPress, what I learned in 9 years

Click to View Transcript:

Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 13 of the WP mainline podcast for Friday, September 24th, 2021. I’m your host. Jeff chiller joined us by Malcolm Peralta, sir. How you doing?Speaker 2 00:00:30 I’m doing well and yourself.Speaker 1 00:00:32 Uh, you know, today’s better than Monday. I had a, I had a pretty tough week, you know, people, you know, and I, you know, I had a tough week when there was no post on Monday. There was no post on the BP line lineup Tuesday and it was, and then people start wondering what what’s going on with this guy. Well, it’s not like for lack of trying, it’s just, I know that I know it’s my job. It’s place of employment. I gotta get, if I’m going to turn WP mainline into a destination, I gotta write stuff. I gotta have things for people to see and read, but sometimes, you know, the, the mental health and some of the anxiety is debilitating to the point, right? Can’t I can’t do what I want to do. And, uh, it’s very frustrating, but I’m happy to report that, uh, ended up talking to my doctor this week.Speaker 1 00:01:11 I got some, some new meds. In fact, uh, I learned that for the anxiety, for the attacks, I take a federally regulated drug and apparently she’s not supposed to be giving those out anymore. So she’s going to give me 15 to get me by, but now I have to start seeing a behavioral therapist, which is kind of like a psychologist or something. And if I’m going to get a renewed prescription of those pills that I take during the anxiety attacks, I have to get them to that person. And then I have to go see the doctor in person. So it’s like, it’s like, okay, I guess they just want to double check and make sure I’m not