Matt: Hey Brian, welcome back to the WP Minute.
Glad to be here.
today we are going to unpack the disrupt.
Organize the disrupt.
Disrupt 2024 just happened.
an event I used to always mark on my calendar, back in my more
youthful entrepreneurship days in the, in the startup world.
And I would, watch every single session going, how, how, how can I do this too?
Fast forward to 2024, not so much anymore until, of course, Matt
Mullenweg appeared in an interview talking all about WP Engine.
When he announced that he was going to be speaking at Disrupt, Half of
me was like, Oh, I wonder if he's just totally going to ignore the WP
engine stuff and just like talk about cool stuff happening with WordPress.
Kind of like we all knew it was happening in the background.
But this interview, with Connie Loizos was number one.
It was fantastic.
number two, it was actually a surprise that it was just purely
about this, This current current affairs that we're in, with the
lawsuit, with WP Engine and Automatic.
and I really appreciated, the 30 ish minutes.
I thought it was all really well used and well thought out.
And in today's episode, we're going to pull out some of those parts.
definitely link to it in the show notes.
Go watch the full thing.
We're not going to play all of it, but there are some key points that I
think, That I've highlighted that I think are, are, would have been nice to
know years ago and also, some clarity around, like, what's happening now.
that's what we're gonna do today.
should be fun.
Brian: Yeah, sounds good.
you, you always like get concerned when a journalist interviews in your specific
area that they're not going to have maybe the best questions or something like that.
But this, that was not the case at that.
Great questions.
great narrative of the interview.
so I think, yeah, I think it was, it was worthwhile.
for anybody to watch.
Matt: Yeah.
This one, we always, you know, we collectively in the community
always sort of like point fingers and at TechCrunch at, at times we're
like, Oh, you're not, you're not understanding how this whole thing works.
but this one, was great.
And we're going to just talk about some of the things that I've, I found
was interesting and particularly, which I've never heard before is
Matt's approach to all things product.
So let me just go ahead and play this little clip right here.
Mullenweg: And, so nowadays we have Tumblr, you know, WooCommerce, which
is kind of open source Shopify, only, Platform growing as fast as Shopify.
Oh, podcasting apps like Pocket Cast, day one journaling.
So we have a whole portfolio of, of everything basically, but our,
the common thread between it all is we try to be privacy centric,
user centric and open source.
Connie: That's Parsley.
We love Parsley as well.
Matt: I totally forgot about Parsley, by the way.
I remember that from, you know, years ago.
But, privacy centric, user centric, and open source.
The first time that I've actually heard it framed that way, which was interesting.
Like, the open source part, yes, I know that, and I think everyone
listening to this knows that.
But the interesting part of just that little sort of throwaway statement
is privacy centric, user centric.
Those are the two that I've not Specifically privacy.
Like I know like the purchasing of text messaging apps and stuff like that
were were thing where he was talking about like privacy and, data security.
And I know day one is, said to be, you know, private and certainly
user centric, but that was just an interesting point that I thought,
I've never really, really heard him lead with, with all things automatic,
Brian: Yeah.
If you've, if you've ever had customers on WordPress VIP, you
would not have forgotten Parsley because they are very aggressive
on, selling it in the VIP world.
but yeah, that is going to, I guess I would have never thought user centric.
that was the one that stuck out to me, but then actually you do think about it,
like they don't own, they really don't own things like that are B2B company.
You know what I mean?
Like they're, he really does own a lot of user products,
user software, and not like.
You know, I don't know, he's not out there, selling Salesforce
or something like that, I guess.
So yeah, I guess in the sense that, and it's like, I feel like I use, I think I
use everything he just listed right there.
So,
Matt: yeah.
we'll start to dive.
It goes right into, you know, this, this whole, WP engine versus automatic
stuff or automatic versus WP engine.
and again, this is all her questions.
this was the questions that Connie came with and the framing of it
and did a really great job, with asking Matt, some of the stuff.
I'll say like, if you're interior to the community, like if you're someone,
you know, putting out the questions, I feel like everyone's sort of walking
the plank these days, for lack of a better phrase, we all are concerned
with even questioning this stuff.
So it It's great to see this, a third party who's independent from WordPress,
that was, you know, very well read into, the community and what's happening,
but also can sort of stand on their own two, two feet without concern of getting
kicked out of, Slack or wordpress.
org.
and, and that's the unfortunate thing that I think we're, We're all faced with when
we're commenting on this stuff, right?
it's, it's just the unfortunate state of affairs that we're in these days, but
we're just reacting to the questions.
In this conversation, I'm priming it.
I'm trying to prime as much as I possibly can here, Brian.
Brian: I, you know, there's a lot of people who, I see that they get blocked
and I, I, I kind of can't really comment, it's like, well, I don't know.
You were a little personal.
You were a little mean, I don't really think you should be surprised, but
yes, there's definitely a general sense that even for people who just want
to be supportive and you feel like, I don't, I just want to phrase this in a
right way so that if any context gets stripped out, it doesn't appear like I'm.
worthy of, of being punished in the community.
Matt: So this is one of these segments, where it would be like a
nice to know many years ago, Connie tees it up with, asking Matt about
what's happening with WP Engine.
She starts it, kicks it off with you declared war using your own
words on them and skipping into his, response a little bit here.
I'm going to play this clip, where they have a little back and forth.
Mullenweg: And actually, you know, we worked pretty closely
with them since they're starting.
We're actually a seed investor, but in 2018 they were, we were kicked
out and they were bought by this private equity firm, silver Lake.
And since then, can
Connie: I back up there for a second?
You were, you were kicked out.
So they bought your shares, but you sold them unwillingly.
Mullenweg: Yeah, we would have loved to have remained involved, but Silverlake
kind of took it over and, like they've done with many open source and open
companies, they've, they've really taken it in a quite, profit maximizing place.
So
Matt: I've never heard of that before, like somebody just,
you know, just gets kicked out.
obviously I don't know like what happened behind the scenes and it even
seemed like Connie wasn't really sure.
Let me just play that part one more time.
Mullenweg: That is private equity firm Silver Lake.
And since then, can
Connie: I back up there for a second?
You were, you were kicked out, so they bought your shares,
but you sold them unwillingly.
Mullenweg: Yeah, we would have loved to have remained involved.
Matt: So they bought your shares.
But you sold them unwillingly.
I, you know, again, I don't know how that happens.
I don't know if maybe at the time they were just like, Oh, this whole,
the Silver Lake company is coming in.
I don't want to be a part of this.
And then they sold or they sold and got their return.
I, who knows.
but I found that like a really interesting part for, for Matt to say,
well, back in 2018, we were kicked out.
I, I'd never heard about that before that, and I hadn't really heard him say
that up until this interview, in fact,
Brian: Yeah.
That, that phrasing was new.
I've heard, I did see some people online saying there are ways where, depending
on the types of shares you have, there are situations where it's not like.
unrealistic that this, you could be kind of forced into a
sellout or something like that.
So that it's, cause like at first I thought, well, that just doesn't make
sense, but I don't know enough about it.
And there were some people saying that is something that is definitely
possible and something they could have gotten wrapped up in.
I do think though, like his phrasing of saying that.
WP Engine is an open source company is a little bit different because I
think the other times Silver Lake buys these companies, they actually get
access to the open source projects.
So they buy the company that runs the project or owns the project.
Whereas in this case, WP Engine is not some open source company
that owns an open source project.
You know what I mean?
So it's not like Silver Lake came in and bought WordPress.
They bought one person in WordPress.
Matt: so obviously the.
Conversation continues on.
I'm going to play this clip where, Connie tees up trying to
get to the root of, of the issue.
Connie: So again, just trying to get to the root of, I guess, what's
happening and, and how it gets resolved.
So, you're frustrated by some of the things that they did,
including making the revisionist, revision history harder to manage.
I guess the question is, was that any of your business to start with?
Mullenweg: What was any of my business?
What do you mean?
Connie: What WP engine does, how it conducts its.
Mullenweg: Oh, absolutely.
Cause they were abusing the trademark and creating a lot of confusion in the market.
Matt: And that's the crux of all this, right?
That's what a lot of us have been saying and is a root for not only
this issue, but like the root of a lot of concern for, for any of us.
and they, and they, she does press them more about like, what happens if somebody
else's, if As successful, if or more than WP Engine and this is the like the,
the, the weight that I think a lot of us feel right now is like we're all looking
at WP Engine going, what's going to happen legally and we don't know for many
years, which we'll find out later in this conversation, potentially, and, that's the
big thing, like the word, the phrase WP Minute, am I, in the line of sight, right.
And all of this WP beginner, like any, so many of us who have started WP
something or something WP, you know, for 20 years, a lot of us are thinking,
could, can any of us, go through this?
And we just saw this too, unfortunately with Jason Coleman and paid memberships
pro where he decided to pull.
paid memberships pro out of the WordPress repo and the repository reported on
this that they saw direct messages from Matt to Jason saying like, Hey, look, we
might take over your slug, the premise login WordPress dot org, take over
the plugin, in fact, and that stuff is You know, alarming, to say the least.
And, I get it about the trademark abuse.
Totally get it, legally and on paper.
but there's just a lot of confusion in the air about what is confusing, what is
infringing, and, and, and maybe at the end of the day when this dust settles,
there'll, there'll be more clarity, but I think everyone's kind of, sort
of, sitting on their hands right now.
Brian: I mean, I kind of get what he's saying about WP Engine's use
of the word WordPress more than WP, like the actual WordPress trademark.
And I, I do, I mean, they did clean up their site since this has happened.
They've been a lot more clear about it.
They've changed the names of a lot of their products.
I think it's, it's not even really the worst argument.
I think.
The part about the revisions though, is this kind of weird tangent where his,
I think part of his claim is that you can't take, you can't take something
that's GPL like WordPress, change the core software and then give it the
same name and still call it WordPress.
You buy GPL, you have to rename it, give it a different name and
make sure that that's open source.
But if you go to WPN right now, you, they're not giving you a different
version of a WordPress core software.
They didn't change WordPress core in any way.
It's still the same exact WordPress core.
They turn off revisions, but that's a filter that anybody can do.
It's not changing courts.
It's actually a core feature to be able to do that.
And so I think for a lot of people, it's like, well, part of it
hinges on this idea that they're.
Tweaking WordPress or bastardizing it as he says.
But I think that's one where it's just, I think you could just kind
of just flat out say that that's not really what's happening.
whereas are they using the word WordPress a little more than
maybe they should be out to?
I think he's on like firmer ground on that one.
Matt: I'll let, I'll, I'll let the, that part of the clip
continue to play out, to be fair.
So he can state sort of like his, his side of it on the confusion.
And that's gonna go into another interesting point
that I highlighted about 8%.
but let's continue where Matt left off.
Mullenweg: So if you look, actually, since this started, they've had, we
used to make tens of thousands of customers leave and including, like,
I had a friend of mine, Bob Perkowitz, who was in the, the CNBC article.
He's a close personal friend.
I've known him for 15 years.
He had eight sites on WP Engine.
He thought it was me.
So it wasn't until this story came out that he was like, oh, and so
that was, you know, he was one of the customers that has left.
So, You know, I think over the next few weeks, they're actually going to lose far
more than 8 percent of their business.
And so that's part of what they've, they've said actually in their filings.
I think they had cancellations of 29%, everything.
So I think that shows that as their customers are learning that
they're actually not officially associated with WordPress.
In fact, are attacking WordPress.
They're moving off.
Connie: Okay,
Matt: so this is the interesting part that I had to highlight.
It's a longer segment.
Connie: So, you wanted, so I don't think we established that you had asked
them for basically 8 percent of their, either their revenue or 8 percent
of the equivalent of revenue in like engineering hours working on the core.
One of your biggest beefs with them, in addition to saying now that they
were abusing your trademark, was that they weren't contributing enough
to the WordPress sort of community.
Mullenweg: Well, that's the way to put it, yeah.
I wanted to give them the option because I knew they were going to.
Weaponize this and publish it.
So I wanted to say, it's not just about the money.
It's really about, like, you know, if you're going to profit off the WordPress
trademark, you know, you need to be part of, you know, the WordPress ecosystem.
But also, it was the WooCommerce trademark as well.
So there's that whole other thing that they were abusing.
Connie: Just wondering how you settled on 8%.
Mullenweg: based on business analysis.
So, you know, if you estimate that would be about 32 million, they still would
have been a free cashflow positive.
Matt: So this is another part where it's still not clear for me.
I don't know about you, but it.
Like this chicken or the egg kind of thing.
Is it, is it the 8 percent that you want or like the trademark
agreement that you want?
Is it the, you know, contributions back, to, open source WordPress
and, and the community.
that's the part that wasn't clear.
It sounds like they were trying to do a deal.
For however long it's been 18 months or something like we'll get to that part.
it sounds like they were trying to do like the trademark deal for a while,
but what's not clear for me was like, have, have you been, an advocate
for them to, to take part in this?
Like when you pulled out in 2018.
when Matt pulled out and Automatic pulled out in 2018, did you start advocating
then to do more stuff, you know, to contribute more hours towards, Core,
Five for the Future, more community stuff, like, when did that start versus
when the, okay, I'm sick and tired of seeing you grow and not do anything and
now I'm just going to hit you with it?
Like this trademark and licensing deal thing.
you know, and I think again, that's just another area of uncertainty,
at least for me to understand that timeline and why, you know, so many
of us are scratching our heads.
Brian: Yeah.
In other interviews, he said that the, he went after the trademark
as a way to apply pressure because they weren't contributing enough.
In here, it sounds like he's saying I added the contributing part later because
I knew it would be public and it would look better is what it sounds like.
Right.
It almost sounds like reverse.
Yeah.
And I know he said that the 8 percent is.
Five for the future 5%, but because that's normally staff hours and because they
didn't want to put staff towards it, he would have to hire staff and manage them.
And that's an additional 3 percent overhead of all the HR and everything
that it requires to manage staff.
So it's really 8 percent because that would be.
3 percent for him to manage them and 5 percent for the actual
staff working on core is, I guess where the number came from.
Obviously the 5 percent is arbitrary too, but, yeah, I agree with you.
It's, it's very, it's, it's kind of unclear.
I think everyone just wants to know, like, what is the ideal outcome here?
Like if you could have everything you wanted from WP engine and you could win
the entire situation, would it just be 8 percent of their revenue as a tax?
Would it actually just be them contributing?
Would it then be changing their name and just not.
Being called WPN, like what is the, it's very unclear what he actually wants here.
I think he knows, but I don't think we know.
Matt: Yeah.
And again, I'm trying not to play this whole interview, but I'll let
this play out just in fairness.
Mullenweg: And, based on our estimates and, you know, the negotiations that
we've had over the past 18 months, we felt like that was a fair amount
na: because by the
Mullenweg: way, they, if you look at the art, part of the reason
it's so profitable is they don't.
Do they don't have any IP, they don't create WordPress, they don't spend
any money on the primary thing that they're selling to their customers.
So if you look at any other tech company, they're spending way more on R and D.
So this is basically kind of like their outsourced R and D cost.
Matt: Yeah, that's a tough one, right?
I mean, they're spending on infrastructure, they're spending on,
you know, humans, they're spending on the, the interface of, like, if you're
just looking at hosting alone, not even talking about, you know, ACF and, and
local and all like all this other stuff, but if you're just like hosting, like
they are, Spending there so they it's not like he's just trying to paint this
picture like oh They're getting all this for free in there and it's like
absorbing all this, you know this profit I get what he's saying, but it's also
like that's an extreme in my opinion
Brian: They they're I don't think people go like I get his argument that
people go there People don't go to WP Engine and then they learn about
WordPress and join the ecosystem.
People who are already invested heavily in WordPress go to WP
Engine and use them as a host.
And so in that sense, they do get to like benefit off the WordPress name.
The second thing though is like, it's not just hosting.
It's, it's their hosting, like, experience.
Like, they nailed developer experience a few years ago.
To a level that none of the other hosted, which is why they got so popular.
And that's not, has nothing to do with WordPress.
That's everything to do with what it feels like to log into WP engine, to launch a
site, to spin up staging sites, to do all the fancy integrations that developers
like they solve that so much further.
people aren't there because they're there for some WordPress software
that they could get anywhere.
They're there for the hosting experience.
And like, that's so it's a, yeah, I kind of, I don't quite agree with this idea
that they don't have to spend any money on that thing that they're selling, which is.
The experience of using their platform.
Connie: Well, they say that they say otherwise, they say they've spent millions
of hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, developing their business.
And they also say that they've contributed a lot to the WordPress
community, plugins, other, you know, sponsorship to a WordCamp.
Matt: And this, this part is, is very interesting to me to, to, to hear him
say this, but it's specifically this.
I mean, sponsorships to work camps are for advertising.
Yeah.
That was a first, right?
I've always looked at it like if you're sponsoring, especially at the
prices these days, you are doing that.
It's not, in my book, it's not an advertising play because I think
advertising dollars could go a lot farther with a lot more impact than a WordCamp.
in my opinion, was if you're going to sponsor a WordCamp, you're doing it for,
to support the idea of getting in person events, low ticket prices, you know, two,
three day events, to support WordPress and not, you know, As an advertising scheme.
Let me just let this clip play out.
Mullenweg: You know, so they've, I think that in total that they've
ever sponsored since they started, I think it's around 400, 000.
and you know, there's other sponsors that would have happily had their space.
So they're, they're no longer allowed to sponsor and already other
companies have taken their spots.
So it's, it's really advertised.
It's like if you had sponsors here, they're doing it,
not just out of altruism.
They're doing it to get customers.
Okay.
Connie: I, how dare you say that about our advertisers?
Matt: so yeah, I just don't buy it as, as a pure advertising play.
I, I've always seen sponsoring WordCamps for the price point and
for what you get in return as a way to support the community at large.
That's my opinion.
Brian: Yeah, I kind of go back and forth on that one because, It is out, it is
advertising, but one is 400, 000 of the sponsorship to the event, but that
doesn't count all the staff you have to bring, the swag, all this stuff like that.
And you know, the cheap ticket prices, the swag, the booths, all that stuff
add up to the experience, the people, the WP Engine employees have been
speakers that get paid to go there.
So there's.
Way more to it than like, we get to see their logo when we go to this conference,
you know, just the ticket price alone.
That to me is a sponsorship or a contribution because they're
subsidizing all of us to get to go to WordCamp by sponsoring and
keeping the ticket prices low.
So I think, yeah, it's, it's a little bit more than they just get to free
advertise to a industry that's already so insular that we all know who WP
engine is to begin with, you know, this isn't tech crunch with 10, 000 people.
this is a.
a small insular group.
So
Matt: yeah.
So, they start to, you know, talk about, another area that was, was really
under the radar for me, like trying to understand the foundation, wordpress.
org automatic you and I famously did about an hour and a half, on, unpacking
a lot of this stuff in, in rapid fire.
so a lot of the stuff we're learning about, you know, Matt owning wordpress.
org and running it.
directly, and the, how the foundation works.
And this is where Connie starts to get into that with him.
Connie: You wrote at the time that automatic had transferred the WordPress
trademark to the WordPress foundation, to ensure access to WordPress and related
open source projects in perpetuity.
You added automatic might not always be under my influence.
So from the beginning, I envisioned a structure where for profit, nonprofit,
and not just for profit could coexist and balance each other out.
It's important to me to know that.
WordPress will be protected and the brand will continue to be a beacon
of open source freedom, regardless of whether any company is as benevolent
as Automatic has been thus far.
It sounds to me like you were saying, take it, go.
And now it sounds very much like the extreme opposite.
Mullenweg: It's important to remember the context.
So Automatic's been around for a while.
I just celebrated actually 19 years there.
So, in 2005, when we started, I was 21.
Our first round was 3.
3.
That was our series a, by the way.
And so, and as a kid, you know, I, I didn't have control over the company
at the time I, you know, the investors, controlled it and we actually brought
in a CEO, Tony Schneider, who actually won a crunchy for CEO of the year
back in the day, I think 2008 or 2009.
And, So, I mean, fast forward to today, I now vote 84 percent of the shares, you
know, so I have founder control again.
Matt: So the foundation and, and the licensing, they go
on to talk more about it.
once again, definitely listen to the whole episode.
I totally understand about the early days of automatic and So I'm trying to straddle
both sides of the line on this one, where I can understand in the early days.
It's easy to get, the rug pulled out from under you, especially from
investors, you know, especially from people who are just looking at you
going, Hey, you got this big thing.
You don't even realize it.
You're building this thing.
They realize it and they, you know, take control.
I totally get it.
So on one hand, I'm like, it was smart of him to, protect himself and
WordPress like that in the early days.
A part of me wants to believe like none of it was done with the intent of
how it's rolling out today, but it's certainly at an advantage today for sure.
so I, I really wrestle with, with like the formation of, you know,
the foundation and I think I have.
Yeah, let me continue this clip because this kind of wraps it up.
Mullenweg: So WordPress.
org, again, just started with me registering the site on GoDaddy in 2003.
It didn't officially have a trademark or anything.
The trademark came a few years later.
So I've always just run it personally.
And, so I have a license to run it for WordPress.
org.
Automatic has a license.
if the foundation has a three person board, I'm one of the three.
So it's truly an independent board.
And then, yeah, for example, if I were not a good steward of the wordpress.
org, you know, website and trademark, the foundation could actually take it
back from me and give it to someone else.
Matt: That was new to me.
Like that, that, that last line right there, that the foundation could
take that license that he wordpress.
org and give it to somebody else.
The issue is, yes, technically on paper it's an independent board,
Because there's two other people, but he's also probably really
friendly with those two other people.
so yeah, on paper, everything sounds like technically correct.
And you would think that if he was acting in bad faith, that.
That foundation could take that license away from him on, on wordpress.
org.
but just a, a very convoluted web.
I don't know how many metaphors I can throw at this.
Convoluted web, slippery slope, like there's just a lot here.
and I think that it wasn't intentional 20 years ago for him to form it this way,
but it has certainly played out in his, in a surprising advantage these days.
Brian: I don't think it was set up for Matt.
I don't think he set it up to give away any control.
I think he's very known as a founder mode type of guy who wants complete control.
And I don't really think that's even a problem.
It's a, it's definitely more of a, like in case of emergency break glass
situation that it can be taken away from him, but it's not a, I have
to make every decision, go through some sort of board of people things.
So I think it doesn't really change my perspective of.
Matt runs WordPress the way he wants to run WordPress.
He always has, probably always will.
I think that's still the same thing it was.
I think, you know, the, the board makeup obviously is really interesting because
I don't think anyone ever thought about it before, mainly because no one
ever really thought that anyone other than Matt could be in charge before.
And I, there's a part of me that thinks, man, it would be great to have a real
board of people who are actually invested in the WordPress ecosystem and familiar
with it, there are two people who it seems like are not engaged with WordPress
in any meaningful way, their livelihoods don't depend on it or anything like that.
so part of me thinks, man, it'd be great to have like, you know, Yoast and Syed
and Miriam Schwab and all these smart people make a real board of WordPress.
But on the other hand, the other part of me says, well, those
people all stand to make a lot of money based on these decisions.
And maybe we don't want a group of people like that running
WordPress either, you know, so.
You know, I think it's Matt, it's Matt, Matt Turtles all the way down.
And I think that's the way it is.
And I've yet to see anybody come step forward with a truly, you know,
meaningful alternative to that.
Matt: And I'm just going to play this for the listener so they can
hear the other two board members.
Connie: Who are the other two board members?
Mullenweg: Shell Farley and Mark Grosh.
Connie: And what do they think of all of this?
Mullenweg: well, we just had a board meeting actually a week or two ago.
We published the minutes on the WordPress foundation sites.
there's incredibly supportive.
Matt: I want to move into, you know, later we're about halfway through
the actual interview and, and what I find, find interesting is, I don't
know how well Connie knows him and, and like personally and, and how long
they, they stayed in communication, but, she generally seems concerned.
As anyone, would like, if with any kind of like details into the situation, I
mean, I'm concerned, for his, his state of being able to manage all this stuff.
I've always been critical of him, managing too much.
I, again, I've said this to him in one of the interviews I had with him, like
directly said, I think you do too much.
I think, how can you wear all these hats?
How can you cover all of these products and these brands and this initiative?
And you can start to see that come through in the conversation, in this clip.
Connie: I did see that you tweeted that you, you were just celebrating
your 19th year at WordPress.
And there was some support, but much, much of it was, you know, hugely negative.
Like, we hope it's your last year, and we all hate you, dog.
sort of typical, ex fair.
But, how are you absorbing all of that?
Mullenweg: Well, WP Engine's been very successful in their PR campaign.
And they've, you know, drummed up a lot of the, the folks who are, sort of
making, they're trying to make this like, WordPress is in trouble or something.
Now I
Matt: haven't seen a PR campaign from WP Engine.
Mullenweg: It's been challenging, to be honest, and, you know,
Matt: I wear
Mullenweg: a whoop.
My, my recovery and sleep has been kind of weak the past few weeks.
but it's also been, it's been an incredible showing of support.
So lots of other executives.
I was just with Mark Benioff in Hawaii a few days ago.
So the folks who, like, really understand business and other things
have been very, very supportive.
Matt: So yeah, I mean, I'm just generally concerned about like, him managing all
of this stuff, all under pressure, and again, it seems like, to his credit,
which he brings up in the conversation, is like, hey, I'm out here doing press,
I'm out here doing podcasts, you know, blogging about it, and, tweeting about
it, but there's also a lot of like, Crazy things that I see happening to
with people getting blocked, get kicked out, banned, taking over plugins.
It's just like Half of me is like I can totally understand the pressure
that you're under how can we help you?
But at the same time like the we is also getting attacked in all this.
To a certain degree I really struggle with it, but it is interesting to
hear You know how she's also like looking at him going you get a lot
here Buddy, like, can you handle it?
Brian: I'm, I felt that she was very concerned and not super
excited with all the answers.
Then again, I was on YouTube and there were people who were like, wow, she's
a chill for WordPress and Reddit the exact opposite as what I thought.
I thought she seemed pretty critical, but about his point there about WP engine.
And their negative PR campaign, which I don't think anyone sees that.
I don't know that he sees it, or if he's just saying it as part of like building
his legal case, or if he truly thinks there's some sort of thing happening from
WP Engine that I don't think anyone sees.
I think it's just community hostility.
That's kind of always there under the surface, but the idea that he goes on
stage and he talks about all of these things, I think is good, on the other I
don't know if you have this clip where she talks about the thing where he's
supposedly hiring Heather Bruner and she's, you know, the CEO of WP Engine,
and she says that it's not true at all, and they've only published one side
of the text messages, and he says that there's another side of the text messages,
but he's not going to show it until it gets forced out in legal discovery, and
that's a situation where it's such a clear black and white, where one side
is telling the truth and the other side is not, and they've And he's right that
they've only published some clips and not his clips, but he could, and he just
hasn't published the other side of it.
And so that's a situation where you go, well, I don't know.
Is it, is it, are you being as transparent because you're doing all these interviews?
Because.
You're giving the same answers and here's a situation that is very clear.
Show us the other side of the texts that they're not showing us and prove that
you're right and it's not happening.
So I don't know.
Matt: they're about to get into that conversation.
this is another important point where she asked for clarity,
Connie: but I guess, I mean, in aggregate, is it, is it worth it to even take
that risk over this battle with them?
And also Matt relatedly,
Mullenweg: I obviously think it's worth it now.
And again, if this were happening every year.
there'd be something wrong with us.
It's kind of like the old saying, like if you wake up every day, and every day,
you meet a jerk, maybe you're the jerk.
He he he.
But, if you know, every five or ten years, you know, we have
something like this happen, I think that's probably about normal.
Connie: I, I guess for the developers out there who want crystal clear
clarity, and I, and I ask, been asked this before, and I haven't heard, a,
a, a, really crystal clear answer.
What is the threshold?
So, What did they, at what point did they overstep?
I mean, what kind of guarantee can you offer to other people that this
won't happen if they also become highly successful as WP Engine has become?
Mullenweg: Well, like I said, there's plenty of other
businesses, which are just.
Matt: So that kind of, that touches upon like what we were talking about before,
like what point do people, realize that they might be in the cross hairs?
He doesn't really give a great answer here.
He doesn't really, like, highlight, like, how other people can, you
know, do this, properly, or whatever.
Brian: Yeah, I mean, I think she just summarizes it right there.
You know, yeah, this is the question Everybody wants to know
and yeah, why why why isn't it answered and he doesn't answer it?
Mullenweg: No You It's all going through their lawyers, Quinn Emanuel.
So, when you have nothing to hide, when you, you know, on the right side, I'm
doing press, I'm doing podcasts, I'm here.
cetera.
when you have something to hide, he said the same
Matt: thing to
Mullenweg: us, by the way, you have it all go through a
spokesperson and your lawyers.
So,
Connie: well, people choose different strategies.
I'm thankful you're here to also say
Mullenweg: from the legal point of view, you know, we had a
neocatal sign up to lead this case.
He's one of the top lawyers in the country.
Supreme Court board was, Obama, and he's actually faced off with
Quinn Emanuel a number of times as in one every single case.
So I think from a legal point of view, we feel very, very strong as well.
Matt: again, like he still feels really positive.
I know his post that he put out, I can't remember, a couple weeks ago at this
point, where he said he's going to be a little bit more quiet, which I also
find a little bit ironic, like he's going to be a little bit more quiet
on the topic, but then showed up at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about it.
whatever, I get it.
It's a strategy.
I get it.
But, you know, I just, I thought it was funny.
I'd imagine if his legal team was like, yeah, we're in the wrong here
for the love of God, please stop talking publicly about this stuff.
They would be saying that to him and he would be taking that advice.
you know, it's hard, it's hard for me to compartmentalize the,
or just to have the two lanes.
That's, that's where I think we all struggle with me personally,
the lane of automatic versus WP engine and Matt in the community.
And those two things, you know, parallel to each other as this all
unfolds, like there's, I can totally understand the legal agreement, or the
legal argument and do all that stuff, I can't wrap my head around why we're
beating up the community so much.
Brian: Yeah, because I, it is important that he didn't sue WP
Engine or file a lawsuit, they filed the lawsuit against him.
So all he did was go on stage, say some things that may or
may not be like libelous, may or may not have extorted them.
For revenue.
I, you know, I don't, I'm just saying these are the charges and then he cut
off their access to a personal website that he owns that I think he honestly,
I don't think there's any reason he couldn't have done that personally.
So, and then they sued him for this stuff.
And so I think in his mind, he, and I think it really is a
coin flip for a lot of people.
Like he's, they, they're kind of have this burden of proof to.
To show that everything that he did was malicious and for some ulterior purposes,
because they're the ones filing the lawsuit and he's, all he's doing is just
not inviting them to his party anymore and, and, and gossiping about them.
Matt: Yeah.
Brian: And so, I mean, I, I kind of get why he seems a little confident.
Matt: I pulled this next clip, just as like an, another interesting
point, stuff that, I hadn't heard of up until this conversation.
This is about, the, Alignment offers or realignment offers, I forget what,
what do you, what do you call the alignment offer, inside automatic.
Connie: I was going to ask you, so, and then, so subsequently, just to let
everybody know, so there was a point where you offered people a six month
salary and then you said, you know what, if you miss the window, I'm going to
give you one more chance and I'm going to let you take nine months of pay.
So that
Mullenweg: was kind of funny.
So even after this six month buyout, we had a leaker of the company.
So someone who was taking screenshots of like internal
private stuff and leaking it.
So, I know you love leakers, but it's kind of breaks the trust.
We have a very high transparency environment at, at automatic where
Basically everything, everyone can say everything, all the revenue
numbers, every, pretty much everything.
So, you know, someone breaking their confidentiality agreement
is really, really tough.
So I created this second buyout, basically just for the leaker.
I said, all right, you know, it was a much shorter window.
It was like a four or five hour window and it was nine months of payouts.
And it was kind of funny.
The leaker actually got in touch in the first hour and they confessed actually.
And I said, you know what?
Great.
I actually have incredible respect for this person.
Here's the nine months and, Yeah, here you go.
Connie: So all together I saw a report that the six month buyout, around 8.
3 percent of people.
159
Mullenweg: people.
Yeah.
Connie: And, and how many more?
Was it just the leaker who took the nine month deal or I'm assuming more?
So
Mullenweg: the second deal, so the first deal, we cut off your access the same day.
The second deal we said, Hey, 159 left.
We're actually, we've actually seen a huge boost in business, so
we're hiring as fast as we can.
So for the second deal, you know, if you're the leaker.
We'll cut off access immediately, but for others, we might ask them
to stay on, you know, possibly until next year, just because
we're very short staffed right now.
So we kind of need to hire.
So, there were some other people that have taken it.
Our, our employee count is actually totally public.
So
Matt: just a lot, like a lot of things there.
Like the nine month deal was really to unearth the leaker, which I don't.
I don't see how that worked.
Like that was the cheese.
The mouse went after like the, there was a
Brian: stick, it was a carrot and a stick because the, in his post
he says, and if you don't quit, here's what's going to happen.
So,
Matt: Oh, right, right.
In the post that he, that, that he put out about it.
Yeah.
yes, that's right.
So there was that, coming up with that plan to, to get the, get to get the
leaker and then others who opted into it.
It wasn't going to be so immediate, which kind of feels weird to you're
going to get your nine months, but you got to hang out until potentially next
year, slightly Awkward, you know, I think to set that tone, to be in the
person in the, in the meeting, knowing you're going to take your nine months,
but you had to wait, wait around.
business is a booming apparently, and, you got to hire as fast as possible.
so just a lot.
Yeah, which a lot happening
Brian: because then later, I think it's later, he says that, they
were a little overstaffed, right?
And that part of it was that he wanted to trim down on the staff and also, which
I thought was a very interesting thing.
Where he says that he would actually thinks that they could do more revenue
and maybe even cut the staff down further.
Yep.
Thanks to things like AI and stuff, which obviously I would never want to
hear my boss saying, Hey, I actually think that I'm going to need a lot
less of you in the next few years.
So, stick around until I can replace you.
Matt: here's one of the, the chaos theories of, what happened early on,
that potentially all of this was to drive down valuation of WP Engine
so Automattic could acquire it.
let's go with some, great questions from Connie.
Connie: I did see that BlackRock had marked down a value of its
holdings to half of that amount essentially back in March.
So there have been theories that this whole fight with WordPress was
sort of driven by automatic being in some sort of state of duress,
wanting to drive down the value of, of WP Engine so you could acquire it.
So do you want to sort of, can you tell me about your company's financial
health and also if there is any.
Truth to your potentially wanting to acquire this company.
Mullenweg: Yeah.
What can I say about that?
That we've said publicly, half a billion in revenue.
we haven't raised any primary capital and have no plans to, so, you know,
running a break even or better and, hiring aggressively and growing.
Very fast.
So,
Connie: and what about WP Engine?
I mean, that was a great non answer here today and in text and tweets about how
people are leaving WP Engine and it's probably not worth what it was worth
when Silver Lake, invested and, you know,
Mullenweg: it's, it's been mildly rumored that they were shopping around and trying
to sell WP Engine earlier in the year.
I'm trying to get a 2 billion valuation.
they obviously weren't able to do that.
And you know, I talked to one of the private equity.
First
Matt: time I heard that 2 billion valuation being shopped around.
Mullenweg: I heard it shopped around,
Matt: but not 2 billion.
Mullenweg: And they said, part of the reason they didn't buy it is they're
like, well, they don't have any IP and what's going on with this trademark.
They don't have a trademark license.
So I think that's part of what's happening.
You know, I'm actually very surprised that Silver Lake hasn't
come back to the negotiating table.
Matt: Is there IP in
Brian: open source world?
I guess just the trademark is what he means.
Mullenweg: Because I do feel like if, you know, if I were valuing
WP Engine, it would be under their revenue right now, you know, because
they're, they're not growing anymore.
they're in this legal battle, which I think they're going to lose and, yeah,
they're losing a lot of customers.
So we'll see what happens.
They're either going to, you know, like I said, we're at war with them
or they're going to go brick by brick and take us and other companies, take
every single one of our customers or.
Matt: That's a pretty scary statement.
Mullenweg: yeah, hopefully if they, they could end this all tomorrow,
but happily, negotiate, you know, Heather, if you're watching this, like
Matt: happy to talk,
Mullenweg: you know, to reach me.
Matt: And it was at this point, I'm just like, This is where I really
started to feel like this is all just to get to the negotiation table.
And it's just a ton of cannon fodder.
You know, this is just really like the dark side of, of business and,
really starting to feel the weight of that, I guess the backdrop of
the, of the WordPress community.
I feel like this is still him saying, come to the negotiation table.
We can figure something out.
And it's just, who's going to, who's going to fold first.
Neither one of them seem like they want to do though.
He's publicly saying that he could do it.
And it's just like, man, if, if all of this is just to get to
that, if all of this is at a buy WP engine, damn, that's going to feel.
Incredibly, incredibly, difficult for the community to swallow, but also
it's just like, doing all of this just to get that 3% at the end of the day.
Like, if that, you know, you're gonna negotiate that 8%, what are
you gonna settle for one, two, 3%?
Like, what's the number?
It's, it's, it's so hard.
yeah.
, Brian: I mean, yeah, I, I just.
If, if there was that answer to that first question, the be crystal clear
about what you're expecting from large companies, I think that would, I think
most people would be on his side.
They say, okay, well, he laid out the line.
This is what it is.
Agree with it.
Don't agree with it.
so obviously even him taking, trying to, I mean, I don't want him to take over
WPNG, I don't know that I think automatic is going to do a better job than silver,
like at this point, but the other piece is just, It doesn't like, I understand
that all of this is to put a ton of pressure on WP engine and to really break
them down, steal their plugins, fork their code, cut them off, do all, you
know, slander them, do all these things, trying to break them down to a point
where, you know, Silverlake just wants to pull out and just drop the asset.
I just, like you said before, it doesn't make sense what that has anything to do
with the interactions on social media and in Slack with contributors and
community members, like I just don't.
get the, how the two have to be related.
Like why, why we have to get one with the other?
Why can't you just do the one and not the other?
Matt: Speeding this process up a bit, they started talking about like what's,
what would happen through this injunction.
this is where he talks about, getting access back to WordPress.
org.
Yeah.
Let's have a listen.
Mullenweg: And, you know, if we lose the injection, what happens?
Well, we have to go back to the state of what they were doing beforehand
where they access wordpress.
org.
So that's fine.
I mean,
Matt: I thought that was part of the problem.
I thought the fact that they had access to wordpress.
org was part of the problem and he's just like, yeah, that's fine
if they get access to it back.
Does that mean they get ACF back on wordpress.
org or they can just use the the mirror?
Like, so difficult to understand.
And then here's the part where We start to realize that this could take years.
Mullenweg: Yeah, so, you know, the estimates I've heard from, from Neil
and others is that, you know, worst case scenario, if we lost everything, it would
be kind of happening in 2026 or 2027.
Connie: Wait, wait, say that again?
If you lost the battle, it would take until 2026 to resolve?
Mullenweg: Yeah, if it goes to jury and everything like that, yeah.
That's just how the legal system works.
If you look at the legal cases, they take a very long time.
Connie: What do you do, again, I don't, I can't sort of emphasize enough how much
animus toward you I'm seeing out there.
And also loss of
Mullenweg: support, but you know, we notice the negative a little more.
Yes,
Connie: yes, but, but, but really, I mean, it seems really, I, it's just so
curious to me that it would be worth it to you to pursue this for two years.
I guess in the meantime, how do you manage?
Sort of, you know, that community that's very frustrated with you, with, with,
with handling this lawsuit and, and pushing Automatic Forward for the next
Mullenweg: couple of years.
Well, we're trying to do some press, right?
So, you know, which hopefully translates some of the story.
there's actually going to be some, some cover magazine articles coming
out, which is pretty exciting.
Matt: It's so tough.
It's so absolutely difficult, to hear that answer to, to once again,
putting myself in her shoes to how do you ask somebody this question?
Like, look what you're doing to all of these people because of this.
And now you want to take it for years.
Like, can you mentally handle that?
Number one.
Is it worth it business wise and financially?
And then number three, like you're doing this all at the cost of this community.
Like, why is this happening?
is the community stuff just the, the theater of the courts where you need
to say, I'm blocking all these people.
Look at all these people attacking me.
Hundreds of hundreds or thousands of people I've had to block for air quotes
attacking me just to build like that long laundry list to show the court
and say, this is what's happening.
all of this is worth it.
Even she's struggling with it.
and then this was funny where he asked folks to, raise your hand.
if you think WP Engine is WordPress, this was, this was kind of funny.
And I love the little comment she threw it throws in
Mullenweg: those of you who knew WP Engine before.
did anyone think it was like officially associated with WordPress?
Raise your hand.
Yeah.
So.
Not that many.
At the legal.
Matt: She says not that many.
Not that much.
Because you can't see the crowd.
because of the camera angle.
And it's just like, damn man, like this is, this just feels like you're
trying to illustrate this whole thing because somebody, because it just has a
tactic in this whole legal, legal bout.
Brian: Yeah.
I mean, I think she, I think she did a really good interview overall.
I think she pushed enough.
You're like, you can't, you can't be hostile in an interview.
You can, once somebody makes it clear, they're not going to answer a question.
There's really no use just circling that question.
he obviously is an extremely smart person and he has answers and he knows
where he's going with the conversation.
And he, this is all part of his strategy.
So I guess kudos to both of them.
I was, I'll be honest.
I was not expecting that.
I did not think the goal of the tech crunch thing was going, I thought it
was going to be like, look at this mat, look at automatic, like, I did
not think WP Engine was going to be the exact focus of it as like a hard
hitting interview at like a care swisher style, you know, pushback.
So I, you know, kudos to him for agreeing to it and for her
pulling off what I thought was really a well balanced interview.
Matt: Yeah, 100 percent agree.
I also thought it was just going to be, you know, just, you know, a
marketing sort of session just to kind of like have a little distraction,
especially after what he blogged about, about not talking about it.
But yeah, it was squarely about the fiasco.
So, Want to listen to the whole episode, I'll link that in the show notes.
Whoever you're listening or watching this, still no idea, what's
happening, with, with WordPress.
I've been asking the question, like, where are we rallying?
I don't even have an answer for that.
right now.
ponder that question.
Let me know what you think.
in the world of WordPress, where can we rally?
Like, how do we continue to put WordPress in a positive light as
a piece of software, as a tool, as a way to publish as a community?
Where do we rally if it's not going to be at a WordCamp or it's not going
to be in the WordPress Slack because we literally don't have access to it?
Where do we go?
How do we spin these things up?
you know, to keep, to keep things going in a positive direction.
Brian, where can folks find you to say thanks?
Brian: briancords.
com is where I've been writing or kind of been avoiding writing at this point.
And, mostly YouTube and Twitter are where I hang out and interact and
all the various Slack groups as well.
Matt: The WP Minute, the wpminute.
com slash subscribe to stay connected.
We'll see you in the next episode.