Automattic: 12 year anniversary  🔗 **Source:** [Automattic: 12 year anniversary](https://nomad.blog/2026/09/04/automattic-12-year-anniversary/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > # 🏷️ Title: Automattic: 12 year anniversary > > **Current-agent capture.** The source is saved, but the full deep-read analysis is pending. The active Codex task must add the notes, topic tags, master highlights, and Reader-native inline highlights.  In the last few years, I’ve noticed that something shifts in my friendships after a decade of knowing someone, even more so after two decades. There’s either this deep steadying that happens or a massive rift. A decade of patterns and ways of being with each other combined with inevitable changes that happen between two people creates a powerful situation of mutual sensitivity and possibility. It’s part of why I have started paying closer attention to both patterns with people and on re-learning people. I always want to be curious about someone’s reality and to never assume while also bringing a level of attention and awareness that can help someone feel properly *known*. I also feel an increasing responsibility to another when someone has chosen to know me this long and share who they are with me. A friend recently remarked to me how surprised she is by how much I weight my long time friendships over even newer ones, even if newer ones are more involved in my life today. This is a bias I carry with me–I value the long term and the decades immensely. I also know how fragile it can be when patterns can suddenly turn into baggage and conflict. When I sat down to write my yearly Automattic anniversary post, this is what immediately came to mind but extrapolated onto my work life: the complexity of working with some of the same people for 12 years, the weight of longstanding problems I’ve wanted to solve in our tech and our culture, the awareness of patterns (good, bad, and ugly) that swirl around creating avenues for momentum and strange dead ends, the ways I’ve changed along with the company and the people around me, on and on. I feel what it means to stay engaged for so long in a place that continues to shift and evolve. Some things that drove me wild in the first few years, no longer do and other things do even more. Like a friend who is always late, at a certain point it becomes a deal breaker, you plan around it, or you try to talk about it (again). I’m thankful for how much of a culture exists to “talk about it” at Automattic. I’ve really tried to meet the moment of the last year: stepping up to lead [WordPress 7.1](https://wordpress.org/news/2026/08/mary-lou/), stepping into a [PHP Foundation Board position](https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/08/04/anne-mccarthy-joins-the-board/), [sharing my thoughts in a documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lQijrTaaGg), and authoring more PRs thanks to finding a groove with AI. It’s been enjoyable to be able to create and communicate better with the help of AI tooling yet it’s also been important for me to center and protect my humanness. A co-worker of mine [made this fun GIF after the launch of 7.1](https://x.com/WordPress/status/2095618320032518473) (it didn’t fully happen live but nearly did). If you look closely, you’ll see a determined relief on my face to have the release out in the world.  More than any work item this year, the biggest thing I’m proud of and still in awe of is my very first public interview about surrogacy where [over a million people watched what I had to say](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbRT46qj3Fm/). In the following week after that interview, my soul shook and I barely slept. What started as a website no one visited (s[urrogacy-stories.com](https://surrogacy-stories.com/)) created this opportunity when a journalist reached out. Steady, vulnerable writing that few people read helped me sharpen my message, find other people born through surrogacy, and helped me speak to a perspective that’s missing. My experience doing podcasts, diving deep about controversial topics in the WordPress community, and bringing contributors together over big topics all served me so well when the interview arrived. I’ve also prioritized sustainability and rest. I’ve said “no” to way more podcasts, panels, and speaking invites than usual. I went out of my way to spend more time with family and my partner’s family, both young and old. I’ve gone off the grid a few times, opting again for two weeks off all technology. I managed to read 8 books in that time period and I’m not sure the last time I’ve done that in a year with how much reading/writing I have to do day to day. I’ve taken full advantage of my healthcare after an [emergency appendectomy](https://nomad.blog/2026/05/15/sea-of-humanity/) and have so appreciated how much remote work has allowed me to be there for my partner who has battled so many health related things this past year. My partner and I took on a garden plot in Seattle and have worked hard to see so much come to fruition. Yesterday evening, I went over to the garden to weed and pick the fruits of our labor: numerous tiny tomatoes, chard, red onion, and a few carrots. A delicata squash, three zucchinis, lettuce, and more carrots are on their way as I write this. We’re both obsessed and nothing has been more helpful in the frenzy of AI slop to watch something slowly grow and to hold it in your hands. I took my mom and one of her best friends to Florence, balancing work and play part of the time. As I walked to coffee each morning, I marveled at how this could be my life and how amazing it felt to bring others with me. I nomaded more this year than usual and loved the chance to do so yet again. It’s impossible for me to talk about working at Automattic without talking about what working at Automattic gives me in terms of a full life, time with loved ones, true rest, the opportunity to work with folks at scale on hard problems, and the chance to make a real difference on the open web. Because it’s been so many years, here’s a list of all of my anniversary posts. When I look across a few of them, I see a pattern of gratitude more than anything and that is what still remains. * On my one year anniversary at Automattic on September 4th, I was on a plane headed from Toronto to Dublin. I sat next to a French Canadian who owned a winery and a dairy farm outside of Ottawa. We spoke of favorite travels, how fascinating anthropology is, and how it’s… * It’s my two year anniversary with Automattic and I’m in disbelief. How has it been two years? My life has radically transformed in many ways since starting work at Automattic. I went from feeling like an out of place psychology major thrown into the tech world unaware of what I… * What I listened to while writing. Just prior to this, I was scrolling through Automattic‘s Bridge team’s updates (think of our bridge team as you would a formal C level team). I like to end my day in randomness if I can. There’s so much to learn at Automattic and so… * This is the loudest thought in my head when I think about 4 years of working at Automattic – “How did my world become so vast? How did I get so lucky?”. My only fear is that my luck will run out as this opportunity feels so rare. Looking back,… * These are some of my favorite posts to write. I love an excuse to reflect and to gush about a part of my life that has brought me so much – like talking about a dear friend. As the years go by, it becomes harder to speak on how Automattic… * Around 6 years ago, I flew from San Francisco into Salt Lake City for my first Automattic Grand Meetup, the name for our company wide retreat. I think we were around 230 people then which felt massive coming off of working at a startup for a few months with less… * To say I feel lucky to still work at Automattic is a vast understatement. To stay I miss my co-workers feels the same. In the dim, horrifying, mind numbing, and surreal days of the last year, working at Automattic was a gift. It felt like the library on my college… * For the first time in eight years, I celebrated my work-aversary in person with a few coworkers. For a distributed company like Automattic, it’s a true reflection of how much I appreciate my coworkers that I’d want to meet up with them to celebrate, despite no need to do so.… * Two weeks ago, I went to the 2023 WordPress Community Summit to discuss important topics for the WordPress community, connect with folks from around the world, and get my fill of possible new ideas/approaches/problems to explore. I love gnarly, complex problems and WordPress has its fair share to sort through… * I’ve spent just barely under a third of my life working for Automattic. These were not mindless years that somehow added up. I have felt each of them in the best way. wordpress. this is new. kevin and the gang went to teh VIP conference and he got me some…, Automattic: 12 year anniversary, nomad.blog, 01m1s3h6xxa2k75tr3q24r7q4s.