The Mind of Matt Mullenweg  ## Metadata - Author: [[Sam Eifling]] - Full Title: The Mind of Matt Mullenweg - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#WordPress, #OpenSource, #MattMullenweg, #UniversityOfHouston, #ArtificialIntelligence] Author: Sam Eifling Source: University of Houston Magazine Reference: [The Mind of Matt Mullenweg](https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2024/the-mind-of-matt-mullenweg/index.html?__readwiseLocation=) date created: 2024-12-11 12:34 --- # Title: The Mind of Matt Mullenweg ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ## 📝 Summary: This article profiles Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, highlighting his time at the University of Houston (UH), the influences that shaped his thinking, and his perspectives on the future of online writing. It delves into his early endeavors in web development, his appreciation for classical literature, and his views on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. ## 📖 Main Content: Matt Mullenweg's journey from a UH student to the founder of WordPress underscores the impact of early educational experiences and personal interests on professional achievements. His engagement with jazz and philosophy during his university years played a pivotal role in shaping his approach to technology and community building. At UH, Mullenweg balanced his studies in philosophy and political science with a passion for jazz, often trading website development services for saxophone lessons. This period marked the nascent stages of his web development career, where he utilized technology to foster connections among local musicians. A significant influence during his time at UH was Professor Ross M. Lence, who introduced Mullenweg to classical thinkers like Thucydides and Plato, honing his analytical skills and deepening his appreciation for the written word. This intellectual foundation is evident in Mullenweg's enduring commitment to literature and effective communication. The article also touches on Mullenweg's perspective on artificial intelligence, encouraging exploration of tools like ChatGPT and emphasizing the enduring importance of writing in the digital age. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Early Life and Education** - Studied philosophy and political science at UH. - Traded website development for saxophone lessons, merging technology with music. - **Influential Mentorship** - Professor Ross M. Lence introduced him to classical literature, enhancing his critical thinking. - **Professional Milestones** - Founded WordPress in 2003, a leading web platform. - CEO of Automattic, valued at $7.5 billion as of 2021. - **Views on Technology** - Advocates for engaging with AI tools like ChatGPT. - Believes in the enduring significance of the written word. ## 📖 References: - Eifling, S. (2024). The Mind of Matt Mullenweg. *University of Houston Magazine*. Retrieved from [https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2024/the-mind-of-matt-mullenweg/index.html?__readwiseLocation=](https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2024/the-mind-of-matt-mullenweg/index.html?__readwiseLocation=) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. Mullenweg's tenure at UH was marked by a blend of academic pursuits in philosophy and political science and a deep-seated passion for jazz. He often exchanged his web development skills for saxophone lessons, exemplifying his belief in technology's power to connect individuals. 2. Under the mentorship of Professor Ross M. Lence, Mullenweg delved into classical texts, sharpening his analytical abilities and fostering a profound respect for the written word—a principle that continues to influence his professional endeavors. ## 📰 Newsletter: In this issue, we spotlight Matt Mullenweg, the visionary behind WordPress, as he reflects on his formative years at the University of Houston and the mentors who shaped his journey. His story underscores the fusion of education, technology, and community—a narrative that resonates with our mission. Stay updated with the latest in web development, including recent WordPress updates, community highlights, and innovative plugins. Explore how Mullenweg's experiences continue to inspire the open-source community and the evolution of the written word online. ## ✅ Action Items: This article aligns with your focus on open-source advocacy and contributor engagement by highlighting Mullenweg's journey in creating WordPress, a cornerstone of open-source platforms. His emphasis on community building and mentorship reflects your commitment to onboarding new contributors and fostering sustainable funding solutions. As an aspiring OSPO director, Mullenweg's experiences offer valuable insights into merging educational efforts with technological passion, promoting transparency, and inclusivity within the WordPress ecosystem. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: 1. Early exposure to diverse disciplines enhances innovative thinking in technology development. 2. Mentorship in classical literature contributes to effective communication skills in tech leaders. ### 📊 Methodology: - **Data Sources**: Surveys of tech professionals with varied educational backgrounds. - **Research Design**: Comparative analysis of innovation metrics among professionals with and without humanities education. - **Analysis Techniques**: Statistical correlation and regression analysis to identify significant relationships. ### ❓ Questions: - How does a background in humanities influence leadership styles in tech? ::contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0} - Document Tags: [[Matt Mullenweg]] [[WordPress]] - Summary: Matt Mullenweg — WordPress founder, open-source advocate and former University of Houston student — says that, in the age of generative AI, “the written word is as important as ever.” - URL: https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2024/the-mind-of-matt-mullenweg/index.html *The WordPress founder reflects on his early days at UH, the teachers who influenced his thinking and the future of the written word online.* Credit: Peter Adams for the Faces of Open Source Project Credit: Peter Adams for the Faces of Open Source Project I**t was more than 20 years ago** now that Matt Mullenweg was a student at the University of Houston, bartering for saxophone lessons. These were the dial-up days, before social media as we now know it, when simply logging on was a chore for most Americans and building websites was still a specialty skill. Mullenweg had his own website, of course, and would chat with other Houston-area jazz musicians in simple online forums and a community site called Jazz Houston, where he kept track of friends’ upcoming gigs. Before Instagram, before text alerts, there was this simple iteration of the internet. The barriers to getting online were higher than they are now, but once you were there, the culture was homespun. “I was looking for every place I could leverage some of these really talented musicians’ time to train me to be a better musician,” Mullenweg says. “So I would build websites in exchange for lessons. It’s really about using technology to connect people, which is what I think technology does best.” Mullenweg’s life has expanded since 2003, when he was a UH undergrad 30 developing [WordPress](https://wordpress.com/), which has long been among the foundational platforms of the web. He’s still the CEO and founder of [Automattic](https://automattic.com/), a company valued at $7.5 billion after a 2021 investment round. WordPress celebrated its 50th release over the summer, a milestone both impressive and, for its regularity, almost quotidian. Like each of the previous releases, this version, [Dorsey](https://wordpress.org/news/2024/07/dorsey/), is named for a jazz artist. As far and as fast as he has traveled since he was coding for alto sax lessons, Mullenweg can still trace his trajectory back to those days in Third Ward, where he was studying classic literature, blogging ahead of his time and working to make the advantages he had as a netizen in Houston available to the greatest number of people. Eventually, he left his philosophy and political science studies unfinished and moved to San Francisco to work for the media company CNET.   Mullenweg (right) and Ernie Manouse, Houston PBS senior producer and host, at a fireside chat at the 2024 Cougar 100 Awards. Mullenweg (right) and Ernie Manouse, Houston PBS senior producer and host, at a fireside chat at the 2024 Cougar 100 Awards. Yet Mullenweg still reps Houston and UH with passion. The “about” section of his website closes with a shoutout to 18 specific teachers who “had a big impact” on him. The professor Mullenweg recalls as the most influential during his time at UH was the late Ross M. Lence, widely regarded upon his death in 2006 as one of the most dedicated and decorated educators ever to work at the University. “He was the professor who really was a sort of trigger for me to look deeper or work harder,” Mullenweg says. “He introduced me to the classics — Thucydides, Plato — and really sharpened my mind to some of the best thinkers of the previous ages.” Mullenweg’s faith in the written word was on display, literally, in those undergraduate days. In a 2003-vintage blog post still living on his website, [ma.tt](https://ma.tt/), he posted a photo of his readings at the time. On the shelf are a mix of classic works by Machiavelli, Kierkegaard, Aristophanes, Bonaventure, and, yes, Plato and Thucydides, alongside such modern essentials as the MLA Handbook and William Zinsser. Also on the shelf: Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone,” a prescient sociology of American solitude. Even as a teenager, it seems, Mullenweg was in conversation with voices from hundreds, even thousands of years ago — while also considering how the written word might close the growing distances between his fellow 21st-century Americans. Mullenweg encourages everyone to play with the new, early generation of large language model artificial intelligence tools. Shake hands with Claude, open up OpenAI, strike up a chat with ChatGPT — they are “intelligence on tap,” he says, and their future is yet to be written. Bad actors will use them for nefarious ends, creating misinformation ahead of elections or designing evermore efficient weaponry. But he has faith that for all the pitfalls new tools bring, people will also figure out effective defenses. “The written word is as important as ever,” Mullenweg says. “If I had a bet on anything, I would bet on writing. “The joke is that the hottest new programming language in San Francisco is English. With the large language models — which are a mathematical matrix, multiplication, next token, et cetera — basically we’re finding intelligence derives from language. … So the command and mastery of that is very, very worthwhile. And now we’re teaching it to computers as well.”   #### *“The written word is as important as ever. If I had a bet on anything, I would bet on writing. The joke is that the hottest new programming language in San Francisco is English.”*  <Advocating Open Source> The internet has changed monumentally in the days since he was first building WordPress along with Mike Little, his cofounder, using the blogging platform b2/ cafelog as a foundation. But Mullenweg’s mission has remained remarkably steady from age 19 until now, at age 40. He and WordPress have always been pivotal advocates for open-source publishing on the web — that is, creating and maintaining a platform with an underlying code available for anyone to access and modify as they see fit. If you’ve surfed the web with the Firefox browser or typed on an Android phone, you’ve used software built on an open-source base. “Open source is basically this radical philosophy that if you are using software, you should be able to see how it works,” Mullenweg says. “You should be able to change it; you should be able to control it, modify it. This is not how most of your proprietary software works, but I believe it’s for a free society.”   Mullenweg is a longtime advocate for open-source web publishing: the idea that "if you are using software, you should be able to see how it works." Mullenweg is a longtime advocate for open-source web publishing: the idea that "if you are using software, you should be able to see how it works." Open source as a concept lies somewhere between a utopian ideal and a shrewd commercial strategy, and its adherents span that spectrum. You want to set up a personal website, for free, in approximately zero time? WordPress is your place. Or maybe you want to build up a site for a brand on the scale of Time, TED, Vogue, Microsoft, PlayStation, Wired or Snoop Dogg? That, also, is something WordPress can handle — and has. “My life goal was to democratize publishing,” Mullenweg says. “Now I’ve expanded that to democratize publishing commerce and messaging. For publishing, WordPress is about 40% of the way there. We got 40% of the websites on the internet on open source.” Also within Automattic is Mullenweg’s effort at replicating that success with commerce: Its product WooCommerce “is like an open-source Shopify.” And Beeper, an acquisition made earlier this year, pulls more than a dozen messaging applications into a single node for users to see all their scattered communications at once. Software should simplify things, he says, not complicate them. If you doubt Mullenweg’s commitment to that philosophy, note the now-famous WordPress tagline, “Code is poetry.”   Credit: Peter Adams for the Faces of Open Source Project Credit: Peter Adams for the Faces of Open Source Project “Matt Mullenweg says something about open source that I remind people about to this day, which is that open source takes longer,” says Mike Schwartz, CEO of the Austin-based, open-source business software company Gluu and host of the podcast “Open Source Underdogs.” “It’s easier to just jump out there and build a product. As a commercial company, it’s harder to build consensus with a community. But you end up with a better process, a better product.” Treating the internet as a creative, freewheeling place also means you never know exactly what you’re going to wind up with. In 2019, Automattic bought the micro-blogging platform [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/) (“one of our greatest competitors back in the day,” Mullenweg says) for reportedly less than $3 million, a tiny fraction of the $1.1 billion Yahoo paid for it just six years earlier. If you haven’t been on Tumblr, just picture a youth-driven digital playground that produces most of the best memes you’ve seen on Instagram and which spares you the blue-check tantrums of X. It’s also a place where people can onboard themselves for other Automattic products. This summer the company announced it was going to migrate a truly stunning number of Tumblr pages — half a billion, give or take — to run on WordPress. That one of the biggest goof-around blog platforms in existence would fit nicely on the infrastructure Mullenweg started in 2003 doesn’t strike him as a bit odd. The thrum of the internet has always required remixes and mashups. He points out that it was a blogging notification device in the design of RSS (really simple syndication) that later became the delivery system for podcast episodes. Every time you get a notification that a new episode has dropped on your favorite pod, you can thank a feature that dates back to the late ’90s/early 2000s, when the developer and writer Dave Winer was mostly concerned with distributing his newsletter, DaveNet. “You build these tools, and what humanity builds on top of them is the exciting part,” Mullenweg says. “I’m just making canvases and paintbrushes and colors. The world does all the creative stuff with it. And that’s exciting to me.”  #### *“You build these tools, and what humanity builds on top of them is the exciting part. I’m just making canvases and paintbrushes and colors. The world does all the creative stuff with it. And that’s exciting to me.”* #### <Stepping Up By Stepping Back> Automattic has nearly 2,000 employees in more than 90 countries, and as the CEO, Mullenweg spends a great deal of time thinking about how to maintain and grow that workforce. The best and brightest minds in tech have their choice of where to work, he reasons, so culture becomes a deciding factor in attracting talented workers. In his company culture, he strives to find people who want to build for a long-term future. And one ingredient in that is granting every employee a sabbatical every five years. Mullenweg points out the concept of a day of rest goes back to the opening pages of the Bible and the Sabbath. After five years of work, an employee is eligible for two to three months of paid time off. Earlier this year, he finally got around to taking his first sabbatical. It had taken him 18 years, because something always came up. “I was the biggest hypocrite in this,” he says. “But it’s hard for a CEO to do.” Eventually, he had to admit he was in charge, inspired by tech investor Jerry Colonna, who encourages leaders to ask: How am I complicit in creating the conditions that I say I don’t want? In Mullenweg’s case, he had built an organization that required his presence in order to function. So he had to do something about it. In the winter, he finally stepped away. He traveled to Japan. He played chess. He spent quality time with horses. Threw a banger of a 40th birthday party. Saw the total eclipse from a plane. Rowed a small craft to Alcatraz Island. He took a step back from his job for the first time almost since his undergrad days, surveyed his life and gave himself space to inhabit a world totally different from his own yet fully his. “Normally, every day, I wake up and my priorities are Automattic priorities,” he says. “What does Automattic need? It’s like having a child — that’s your priority. “Even mentally removing that and saying, ‘All right, this is not my thing.’ We’re going to mentally say, ‘Someone else is responsible. I don’t have to worry about it. What do I want to do?’” That has always been the question at the heart of the internet. What do you want to do? Your answer necessarily builds on what has come before — as surely from your latest decisions as it does from Greek dramatists and Danish existentialist philosophers. Every day is open, yours to modify as you see fit. , The Mind of Matt Mullenweg, Sam Eifling, 01jev0gsxf9h1aer6w0g31478q.