Perspectives With Matt Mullenweg  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Perspectives With Matt Mullenweg - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/68dad745-2feb-49d2-b847-26c521454b61 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **From Sax To Travel Photography** - Matt moved from music to photography while traveling because instruments are hard to carry. - He used photography as a personal archive and to remember places he visited. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg Like I said, my early passion was music. But as I started traveling more, it's hard to travel with an instrument. And so I got a lot more into photography. And yeah, it's a great way. Also, my memory is terrible. So it's a great way to kind of like remember things and be able to look back. And I enjoy the artistry of it as well. Yeah, I saw on your blog just recently, you dredged up some old business cards and you're a saxophonist yeah that was uh that was how i i paid my bills um i probably made more money from playing Saxophone than web development or computer development until i was like maybe 19. Luke Do you still get an opportunity to have a bit of a jam? Matt Mullenweg Oh, every now and then. I pull it out. I'll do it with friends. A lot of people I grew up with are still musicians and quite better than me because they've stuck with it. ([Time 0:11:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/22c9c83e-ce7d-4373-9a81-94a9b47b36bd)) - **WordPress As An Operating System** - WordPress is most powerful as a base layer or operating system powering sites and ecosystems. - That monolithic stack yields the biggest benefit from plugins, themes, and dynamic integration. Transcript: Jonathan Those who haven't heard me talk about it before, Matt, you were the one who first wrote about this idea of WordPress as an operating system many years ago. And it's something that at first I'm like, it didn't really make sense to me. And then it began to resonate and I began to think about it more and especially like the ecosystem ramifications of it. My question for you, we've touched on this off and on over the years. Do you still see that as relevant framing? And if yes or no, like how has your thinking evolved over the years? Sure. Matt Mullenweg It is complex because, of course, WordPress can be used in many ways. It could be used as an API provider or something like that. But I think WordPress is most powerful when it is that base layer, when it is the operating system. When it's the thing you put on your website and everything else is built on top of it, right? The plugins, the themes, that whole ecosystem, that sort of more like monolithic stack where WordPress is serving the site itself, I feel like is actually where you get like most of The benefit of it, being fully dynamic, PHP, being able to integrate plugins, turn things on and off. You know, a lot of things we do around, like making ([Time 0:13:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/38d5b105-0be1-4d64-844a-e4f18c98538f)) - **Weighing Core APIs Versus Plugins** - Adding APIs to core increases surface area and risk, so weigh core inclusion versus plugin implementation. - Customer journeys (like mobile apps) often force APIs into core for a consistent experience. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg Looking back, I don't know if bringing the REST API into core was the right decision. You know, the code ended up being a little bit buggy. It had some security problems. It introduced a lot of surface area to the product. And, you know, is REST the right, or is GraphQL better, or something else, you know. But again, the nice thing about WordPress is there's more than one way to do it. So you can use WPCLI for some people. That's their way they want to interact with their WordPress. For some, it's Rust. For some, it's XMRPC. For some, it might just be our feeds that we provide. So, you know, going forward, I think a lot about how do we allow some of these things, like a really, like what should be in core, what's like that core experience and user experience. And then for people who want to extend it or interact with their WordPress in different ways, like what do we need to build it? And it's really customer driven. So for example, like, you have mobile apps. And so if we want those mobile apps to work, then we need to have API built-in something. So you've got to think about that customer journey. ([Time 0:18:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/58178449-8a45-4573-a30d-b97f113432c9)) - **Design Around Capabilities First** - Decide core capabilities first, then build user experiences on top of those primitives. - Register explicit APIs (like the abilities API) to expose capabilities programmatically and improve workflows. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg And then for people who want to extend it or interact with their WordPress in different ways, like what do we need to build it? And it's really customer driven. So for example, like, you have mobile apps. And so if we want those mobile apps to work, then we need to have API built-in something. So you've got to think about that customer journey. It's fine for something to be a plugin, but for asking people to install a plugin, what does that flow look like? Luke I guess that's my question, is what is the customer? Back then, we went through this stage of talking about the customer as being not only blogs, not only webs, build a whole website. Not only that, but you can also build a whole web app now using WordPress. And it was sort of growing in its application and it could be used for. And so what I hear you saying, and please correct me if I'm not getting this quite right, but it sort of sounds like you're saying, well, let's focus in on the people who use WordPress. And those people seem to be, it's more website focused. What is the customer for WordPress? Yeah. So there's multiple ways to look at that. Matt Mullenweg So I do think it is useful to look at and survey, like, what are the demographics of people using WordPress? Like, to understand who is resonating. But from a product development point of view, you know, people contain multitudes, right? So when we start to put labels, you're a blogger, you're a website creator, you're a builder, you're a store, you're a whatever. Those can become constraining. And so I like to think about it as like, what are the capabilities? Like, why would someone use WordPress versus something else? What would they like about it? And, you know, some of those core capabilities are, well, you have a fully dynamic sites that you can look at the front end and then click edit and change it really easily. You know, like those sorts of core capabilities, you know, are fundamental. And we need to think about like, you know, how we're exposing those capabilities. And that's what's fun about this new abilities API. It's forcing us to actually like be explicit, listing these out and registering them and making them accessible in a programmatic way as well. And then how, like, how's the workflow around all of that? Like, what's the UI? What's the sort of user experience of how people use it? ([Time 0:19:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/89e036a7-54ae-41ef-885b-444aaadb6afc)) - **Lead For The Long-Term Ecosystem** - Consider long-term ecosystem effects and varied incentives when making leadership decisions. - Prioritize what you believe is right for the project's future, not short-term popularity. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg Well, you have to think about everything, of course. Yeah, I wouldn't describe it as more relaxed, you know, because, you know, freedom is not free. And sometimes you have to really fight to stand up against bullies or bad actors or people taking advantage or bringing trademark law or other things around a product. Because otherwise it can become taken advantage of and destroyed, actually. You know, I described it as a cancer to WordPress. And of course, those things left untreated can kill the host. So I think a lot about the future. And, you know, if we allow certain things to continue, or if everyone did, you know, this, what one actor might be doing, what would that look like? And you kind of have to like, you know, iterate out and play these things out years in advance. And yeah, sometimes that requires little actions or little interventions and sometimes it requires big ones. You know, the big ones only happen, you know, periodically kind of every like five to seven years. The little ones happen though every day. And there's sort of a constant pruning and gardening and like, you know, investing in the health, long-term health of the ecosystem. And I'm human. So of course I make mistakes. And I have in the past and I will in the future. And so what you can do also is learn from those, take feedback, iterate, and, and, you know, also know that you're not going to please everybody. So like, ultimately, end of the day, like I, I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. I'm not trying to, you know, I'm trying to do what, you know, to my moral framework and what I believe is right for the world and everything, do what's right. ([Time 0:27:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a2e4b602-975e-4073-8c18-01673f2eba7f)) - **Why 'WordPress.org Is Mine' Was Misread** - Saying "WordPress.org is my personal site" was reductive and sparked strong reactions. - The reality is hybrid: parts are community-run, others involve legal liability and centralized operational control. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg And and this is nuanced and so that's a quote that got taken out of context and like you said people reacted really really strongly to it so i really regret you know that reaction because You know if you look at the full context of what we were saying, it was really much more about, yes, so why did you feel like you were WordPress.org? Well, because most of the code is open source and most of it's run day-to and so many of the functions of the operating of the site are done by a variety of people. Luke Sorry, I just do want to push back a little because you didn't say WordPress.org belongs to me just once. Like you said it in relation to like, I don't know, the marketing team, X stuff. You've said it on Slack. You said it to the verge. Like it's been a few times that we've heard this line come out. So I guess. Matt Mullenweg Oh, well, let me finish what I'm saying because I'm trying to add the nuance. All right. So the other side of that is, okay, one WP engine and Silver Lake are suing someone who is going to court, who is paying for the lawyers, who is ultimately responsible and accountable And liable for what happens on the site. So I am that entity with shields. So Jonathan, Luke, like, you know, are you having to hire lawyers? Are you having to be like whatever it is? And so there is kind of the legal version of this as well as like ultimately like what is the entity accountable for if something goes wrong on the site or who's paying for the upkeep of The site or who is ultimately managing these sorts of things. So this is where it gets into, you know, a place that you can describe it as is essentially a hybrid. That this is a domain that belongs to me. On that domain, there are servers, there are entities, everything like that. Some of these are run in ways that are open source and anyone can edit. There's like wiki pages and forums and reviews and everything that anyone can participate in. And then some of those are things only a few people can change. Some of them are things only I can change. So, you know, it really, WordPress.org is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of services and forms and different bits of code and content. And, you know, it's under different licenses. You know, some of the code is licensed in a certain way. Some of the content is licensed in a certain way. There's assets on there. Like there's a logo, there's a trademark. So all of these different things have different elements. And it's, I would say, reductive and harmful. So the people who are trying to say, oh, this is just Matt's thing. And, you know, what they're really reacting to is like they're reacting to some disagreement with a decision I made or my leadership or something like that. ([Time 0:32:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/39ab8c5e-37b8-4382-87b8-642b8a2cd6a1)) - **Hosts Should Mitigate External Dependencies** - Hosts must plan for external dependencies and mitigate remote-service failures for their customers. - Treat availability risks (CDNs, network calls, remote files) as part of hosting responsibility. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg Has always been true. And many web hosts over the years, you know, who are ultimately on the hook for providing a service to their customers, for making sure the software works, might have different ways To mitigate, you know, the availability of certain web services. I think that's really on the responsibility of a host to, you know, look at how everything, the software they're selling to people is operating and what happens when certain parts of That break. And that could be the CDN. It could be, you know, network calls that are being made. It could be remote file calls that are embedded to Google Fonts or something. There's like a million ways. And so you have to decide which of this you're building back up to. ([Time 0:44:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7f6a1f8c-f676-4793-94b5-07130ce04b46)) - **Trademark Fight Fueled Misinformation** - A trademark dispute led to misinformation and deliberate discord from an actor accused of misuse. - Social media amplified the conflict and made it harder to resolve through nuanced discussion. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg Actor who was called out for misusing a trademark and said, you know, feels that they should be able to use a trademark in certain ways that are not in alignment with the people who have Rights for that trademark or ownership of that trademark. And they fomented a lot of discord and misinformation and, you know, controversy to essentially, you know, attack this, you know, raising of an issue that, you know, there was perhaps Some bad behavior going on. And so it's, you know, this is, again, one of the motivations, what are the incentives of the different people putting this out there? And we're also in a social media world where, you know, I think that different from prior controversies that WordPress has gone through, and there have been many, many over the years Where different actors have had different incentives or wanted things to happen in a different way. I mean, even going back to like the Easter massacre of themes, right? So for a while, thousands of theme developers would sell links in their theme that would link to like an SEO website or something like that. And one day WordPress decided this was not allowed. And so all of a sudden, like probably millions of dollars that was going to, you know, thousands of theme developers got cut off overnight. And they were very unhappy about this. And there was a huge pushback. And they said, well, we should be able to publish whatever we want. You know, this is GPO code. There's no, like nothing in the GPO that says I can't embed my spam link on the site. And, you know, we, you know, sort of myself and others collectively decided as the people running wordpress.org that we were not going to distribute themes that had these spam links In them so again could someone still publish it on their own site of course and so that's like that wasn't taken away from them but like we were saying okay from this like thing that's in Wordpress.org that we promote and say this is a great place to get themes. We're making sort of a promise to our customers that those themes operate a certain way. And those promises are implied, some are explicit, but there's also just the brands. Like we're saying like, hey, this code isn't going to like cross your site or maybe it follows certain accessibility standards. Like a continuum of things that are like evolving over time. And so previously when these controversies happened, like it blew up in the blogosphere, but we didn't have this kind of social media thing and Twitter and other things that I think Do really rile people up and don't deliver themselves to more long formform nuanced discourse. Honestly, this whole thing, like if we had all been forced to sit in a room and talk about it, probably would have been way less bad than, you know, what we were doing, which was like, you Know, tweeting at each other and doing blog posts and, you know, news media was hyping things up and if it bleeds, it leads. And, you know, there's all sorts of, you know, misinformation going around and all everything. So everyone got really riled up. ([Time 0:46:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1fd22811-6eaf-4189-a82b-a72c375443ed)) - **Prepare For Legal Weaponization** - Avoid protracted, weaponized litigation when possible because discovery and legal costs can be crippling. - Prepare legal and operational defenses early if you expect high-stakes disputes. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg Would say, you know, honestly, the thing I haven't had to deal with in the past is a huge lawsuit like this. So, which, of course, was initiated by WP Engine and Quinn Emanuel, we did not actually initiate the whole legal case. So everything that's been going on in the courts that you've been reading about has been automatic and myself defending against the claims made and the lawsuit that was filed, I think, November of last year or whenever it was. So, you know, as an American citizen, as someone like who's, you know, an active participant in our democracy, how the legal system can be weaponized and the asymmetric cost of that. And how things like discovery work, for example, how that can be threatening. So the fact that you have to preserve all these records and provide full copies of everything. And like if there's any mistakes made there, then all of a sudden that becomes like its own issue. And like, what does that also mean? You know, so like what can they legally demand copies of what could they get access to and how discovery works even so um a lot of people think like um does discovery mean like i had to take All my devices to be imaged for example um so full copies of all my devices everything on the hard drive, everything. Now, that image of my computer doesn't just be given to the other side. It gets sort of held as like discovery firms and technical things, and they can request essentially like queries against that. And then that goes to my lawyers who then present it back to the other side. And there's, you know, things can be contested. So there's a whole process around that where, I mean, some of that was very scary to me. I'm like, goodness, like, are they going to have access to my Bitcoin wallet? And it's like, well, yes and no. Like, no, not really. But they could request that or, you know, then they would have to justify that to a judge and things like that. But it's, yeah, all of this is, so I would say that's my biggest learning. This is an entire part that luckily in my long business career, you know, investing in hundreds of startups and building businesses for 20 years now, I haven't been involved in like Quite an extensive legal process like this. And it also made me say that like, hey, avoid this if you can. ([Time 0:52:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8700bfcf-c48e-49ba-95ab-04c3aa3783f2)) - **Open Source Resilience Over Time** - WordPress has weathered many "deaths" and controversies; incentives drive repeated doomsaying. - Open-source licensing and distributed contributors provide resilience and continuity against shocks. Transcript: Matt Mullenweg And, you know, so I know you say this feels different this time. However, one of the benefits of now having done this for 20 years, 22 years with WordPress is looking back at the time, I thought those were existential crises. And people were saying this is the death of WordPress. WordPress died a dozen times over the years. And there's always been someone saying, and by the way, people who are incentivized to say like, okay, this is the end. Now let's all switch to this other thing. Or now let's, you know, come over to my thing. Or let's go to this new technology stack. Or it's all Jamstack now. Or it's all going to be, you know, we're all going to switch to Wix or whatever it is. That has happened so many times over the years. And any time that you falter or make a mistake or just have a controversy or a public fight, people are going to use that to pile on and promote their self-interest and for the different Things. So to the question, like, Luke, you're saying personally, what should you, how can I give you confidence? I hope coming on your podcast and having this discussion helps a little bit. I hope that you also, you know, judge us by, you know, how is the next version of WordPress? Is it safe? Is it secure? Is it stable? What we building? What is like the new features that my company is investing in around AI and MCP and the future of WordPress? Like what are the things that we're putting into open source? Like, you know, so look at the sort of breadth of everything and also like look at the track record. So has, have I changed in the past, you know, six months in a way that is different from the past 19 and a half years or 21 years or whatever. So, but ultimately you have to make your own decision and you choose where to put your energy and time. And I think everyone should do that based on, you know, where they find, you know, meaningfulness, connection, joy, happiness from everything. And so, you know, part of some of this, like the intention behind a pineapple thing or something like that is also just to remind ourselves that like, hey, let's have fun with this. We're building software. This should be a little bit silly. We should be able to have jokes, not take ourselves too, too seriously around this. Yes, it is the huge end of the world but like are we still able to go to our homes at night and you know hug our loved ones and have food to eat like like in the grand scheme of things like is what Is the the threat the existential threat to our future and our well-being even if even like let's just pretend like WordPress.org shut down tomorrow. Like, well, okay. So we'd make a copy of it and you could still sell it to clients, whatever this new thing is called or whatever it is. Like what would be, it's easy to catastrophize and feel like things are the end of the world or existential. However, you know, this is also why I love meditation. Like, it's really helpful to be able to take a step back and like really like, okay, look at the full context or even imagine like, okay, let's imagine the worst possible thing that could Happen. And if that happened, what would I do tomorrow? Oh, well, maybe I would, you know, again, let's pretend that WordPress or going away is a worst possible thing. By the way, I'm just saying that. I don't think it'll happen. But, you know, let's just pretend that's like a terrible thing that could happen. Or I get hit. That's what I'd do if that happened. Oh, let's say I die tomorrow. I could be hit by a bus, by the way. Okay, what happens the next day? Luke Yeah, absolutely there are contingencies. Matt Mullenweg You know, and what will all the people running WordPress around the world do? What do all the web hosts do? What do, like, you know, I think we will find a way. We'll move on. We will like, you know, and the beautiful thing about open source and that license also is that those fundamental freedoms that are granted in that license, the sort of twist on copyright Law that open source has figured out from their pioneers of it in the 90s and the 80s, does provide a lot of continuity and care, which is different than if this were proprietary software Or something else. So ultimately, that's another thing. It's like, hey, we're all open source today. And so that does provide a lot of customization, flexibility, autonomy, and freedom to all the users of that software. ([Time 0:58:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/97754658-fffc-446f-9568-948e881d30a0))