The Formula  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: The Formula - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/b5db76dd-c989-4f1a-abca-035188d1178c ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Matt's Response Formula** - Matt Mullenweg uses a predictable formula to answer difficult questions involving smiling and rejecting the premise. - Recognizing this can make his responses seem evasive and frustrating. Transcript: Luke You know, I try to keep an open mind as much as I can when it comes to Matt. But I had this experience where I realized suddenly it clicked for me. He's like, he's got a formula for how he answers difficult questions. And when you realize this formula, everything he says starts to really annoy you. And every time, every time he talks, it's almost like, ah, no, I really don't like this guy. Answer the question, Matt. Jonathan What do you think the formula is? Luke It goes like this. First of all, you need to affect a large smile on your face. Do it with me. Okay. And then reject the premise and talk about something slightly different. Okay. Jonathan What's an example? Luke Will you ask me a question? Jonathan Go on. Okay, I'll do the bit. Luke No, don't pretend I'm Matt. Just ask me a difficult question. Jonathan Okay, let's see. Luke, why do you like cricket so much? Luke Well, I don't know if that is necessarily that I like cricket so much. You see, cricket is a great game and it's been played for a very long time, et cetera, et cetera. Jonathan Okay. ([Time 0:00:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/25b56612-093d-4969-87ed-4cdd8ea86076)) - **Matt Mullenweg's Interview Formula** - Luke noticed that Matt Mullenweg uses a formula to answer difficult questions, which involves smiling and rejecting the premise. - This formula can become annoying once recognized, as it avoids directly addressing the question. Transcript: Luke He's like, he's got a formula for how he answers difficult questions. And when you realize this formula, everything he says starts to really annoy you. And every time, every time he talks, it's almost like, ah, no, I really don't like this guy. Answer the question, Matt. Jonathan What do you think the formula is? Luke It goes like this. First of all, you need to affect a large smile on your face. Do it with me. Okay. And then reject ([Time 0:00:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6a270d27-2b88-4f8b-8c1d-667bc9fcaf62)) - **Matt Mullenweg's Interview Formula** - Matt Mullenweg has a formula for answering difficult questions, which involves rejecting the premise and then discussing a related but different topic. - Luke realized this pattern and now finds Matt's responses annoying because he doesn't directly address the questions. Transcript: Luke He's like, he's got a formula for how he answers difficult questions. And when you realize this formula, everything he says starts to really annoy you. And every time, every time he talks, it's almost like, ah, no, I really don't like this guy. Answer the question, Matt. Jonathan What do you think the formula is? Luke It goes like this. First of all, you need to affect a large smile on your face. Do it with me. Okay. And then reject the premise and talk about something slightly different. Okay. Jonathan What's an example? Luke Will you ask me a question? Jonathan Go on. Okay, ([Time 0:00:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f5367797-a260-4298-a882-3117a298bfa2)) - **Matt's Formula** - Luke describes Matt Mullenweg's formula for answering difficult questions, which involves smiling and rejecting the premise. - He then shifts the discussion to something slightly different. Transcript: Luke Goes like this. First of all, you need to affect a large smile on your face. Do it with me. Okay. And then reject the premise and talk about something slightly different. Okay. Jonathan What's an example? Luke Will you ask me a question? Jonathan Go on. Okay, I'll do the bit. Luke No, don't pretend I'm Matt. Just ask me a difficult question. Jonathan Okay, let's see. Luke, why do you like cricket so much? Well, ([Time 0:00:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ebfe61c1-fba3-45f6-9794-f1250744a586)) - **Concerns About Commercial Overreach** - Matt worries about commercial interests overwhelming open source projects, citing Joomla as an example. - He suggests that excessive monetization can hinder a project's progress and sustainability. Transcript: Luke Whereas to... Yeah, it's probably new to a lot of the Dakota audience. One of the things, though that he did touch on oh let's say this was new actually uh news to me is he's he was asked like why did you go after wp engine and i mean actually the way the question Was worded was fantastic it was couched in you know we've all been doing open source for so long. We know open source, we know how it works. And forever, this has just been part of it. There'll be free riders, you know, that that's just part of the game that we're playing. That's permitted legally by the licenses and everything. And it's so why, why now? Why did you have to go after WP Engine? And Matt smiles and rejects the premise. And, oh, well, I'm not just going after WP Engine, you know, and then talks about commercial interests in open source. Jonathan The private equity piece of it, I assume. Yeah, something like that. Luke And he talks a little about how, you know, if commercial interests take over the project, then it can go nowhere. Makes actually a pretty good point about what happened in Joomla. That's not a point I've heard applied to this whole situation very often. ([Time 0:02:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/01405907-d0d3-4667-a992-6af03367ae8e)) - **Premium Plugins and Monetization** - Matt felt misaligned incentives prevent premium plugins in the WordPress.org repository. - Automattic.com may become the commercial avenue for monetizing premium plugins while WordPress.org remains non-commercial. Transcript: Luke So that's interesting. But where I was going with the commercial thing is that he said explicitly that that's why there are no premium plugins. There's no sales mechanism through the WordPress plugin repo is because he thinks that there's misaligned incentives. That was interesting to me because I know that that is actually something that you had been championing. And I know it's sort of like maybe a long-term goal of yours, or I'm not sure how you currently feel about it, to be honest. But for years, you were talking directly with Matt about maybe making that happen. Jonathan This makes me wonder too, if maybe Automattic's interests are shifting because what I'm reading between the lines is maybe Matt's position is that WordPress.org, in fact, will not Have that monetization. But I'd be surprised if WordPress.com didn't lean into that even further. And perhaps that's the long-term answer where it's like, oh yeah,.org will remain unmonetized and.com will pick up that banner. ([Time 0:04:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/93927766-eb18-4381-99c0-958f74d6609d)) - **Community vs Personal 'We'** - Matt described returning to contributing to WordPress.org after stepping back due to community backlash. - He used "we" frequently, but Jonathan questions if that's really a collective community feeling or a personal perspective. Transcript: Luke And that also was covered back in that Nilay Patel interview about why they returned to contributing to WordPress.org, which was that basically, Matt said, we felt hurt by all of the Community backlash, we meaning I, and we needed a break, we meaning I, and then we missed it. So we returned. I got to think there's more to the story there. Jonathan Well, just as a counter to that, I think it's quite possible that Matt, and I would expect in good faith that he is hearing from people in the community who are affirming that sentiment. So he's not just representing the broader interest. You don't feel that he's representing your interest in that. And I would argue that the challenge is like his sample is both perhaps, is probably not large enough and is going to be biased in favor of agreeing with him. Luke Right? I mean, maybe, or maybe he just says we when he means I. Or maybe he's got one or two yes people involved. But do you know what I mean? Like it's very easy for a CEO to just say a royal we. Jonathan Sure, especially in the context of an interview, perhaps, right? Whether it's conscious or not, I could see that sort of representative approach. But I'd give him the benefit of the doubt in that case. And I'm guessing he's at least heard from people who are agreeing with him, whether they're agreeing out of fear or genuinely believing. ([Time 0:06:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0ee74543-0486-4a8b-8af1-0f06b37162ae)) - **WP Engine Decision Controversy** - Matt claimed the decision to pursue WP Engine was a "community decision," but many were surprised by it. - Jonathan suspects this may feel disingenuous because the community was largely unaware beforehand. Transcript: Luke Point he's asked, was the decision to go after, Neil, I did it beautifully. He set up a little earlier. He said, you know, one thing that you've always done is you've documented your decision-making process within Automatic. You use the P2 blog and you, you know, make it a bit of a group decision. It's not just you and you document it all and who was involved in making the decision in text. Do you still do that? And he said, Matt said, yes. And Eli said, you know, a few moments later, he said, okay, whose decision was it to go after WP Engine? Was that a Matt decision or was that a group decision? And Matt said, that was a community decision. Okay. Jonathan See, and that does, as you're describing it, I haven't heard the exact words, but that feels disingenuous, whether intentional or not, because at least for the majority of us, we didn't See it coming. ([Time 0:07:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/af53914d-d913-4d69-afe0-7dfcb1119196)) - **Build Independent Plugin Directory** - Consider creating an independent body to manage the WordPress.org plugin directory and monetize premium plugins. - Using revenue to support community events like WordCamps could foster sustained growth and benefit everyone. Transcript: Luke Anyway next time you hear matt speaking especially at like a um an event where he's asked live questions from the audience look for that pattern anyway so right i'm a bit frustrated by This premium plugin thing because i actually think premium plugins on the dotorg directory, the plugin directory and themes. I'll say plugins, but I mean themes and block patterns too. Jonathan Blocks, yeah, anything, yeah. Whatever. Luke And I think that this actually could be a really good way forward. I'm kind of disappointed that it's sort of not on the table. If.org was only owned independently, right, it doesn't have to be automatic and it doesn't have to be Matt. It can be an independent body. We doesn't have to be the foundation because foundation is not for profit. We can spin up something new out of the foundation, just like we spat out the community team to do WordCamps. WordCamps are not for profit. You know what I mean WordCamps are technically a for-profit entity. So we could do something like that for.org and ownership there. And then if we had a percentage cut going from the plugin directory into that, then that could be a great way of maintaining the directory. ([Time 0:09:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ba4fd30f-e38d-4e92-83bc-5cb57b2fa811)) - **Future of WordPress.Org Governance** - Matt may plan for succession and possibly separate the WordPress.org ecosystem to enable monetization. - Legal issues and shifting motivations could catalyze faster movement toward new governance models. Transcript: Jonathan And part of it is like Matt has to be thinking about... Luke With or without Matt? Jonathan Well, Matt has to be... He said publicly that he is thinking about succession and what happens afterwards. And by sort of current state, if.org is his today, at some point, Matt's not going to be around. I hope for his sake, that's a long time in the future. But there is a – at some point there's going to be a transition. I would predict, Luke, that it can happen within the next decade, which is a long time. But I can actually – I can see us getting there. Luke You mean Matt's succession or do you mean a plug in the directory? Jonathan No. Like I can see Matt. Like right now the incentives aren't all that high, but I could see him going through the work to separate.org and take the things that have been learned from some of the other initiatives That have happened and like solve the monetization. Last, I looked at the problem a few years ago. It was rooted in its ownership by the foundation or the connection to the foundation, its nonprofit status. Like there were just blockers on top of the fact that it wasn't very motivating. That just made it a non-starter. But I can see the climate, the interests shifting. Maybe something out of the legal cases will be a catalyst for like him saying, OK, I'll set this up as a separate thing with its own governance. Obviously, he'd be involved and have authority in that context. But I can see something happening sooner rather than later. ([Time 0:10:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b9108c7c-8c48-45ee-b0c6-36aadec6f5c9)) - **WordCamp US Ticket Sales Lag** - WordCamp US ticket sales are lagging, coinciding with negative public sentiment about traveling to the US. - This could impact international attendance and the overall success of the flagship event. Transcript: Luke Well done. Jonathan It's not nothing. Luke So I wanted to ask quickly also about WordCamp US because that's something that's been controversial in the last week or so. And, you know, it was interesting because I came across this post on the repository about how ticket sales are lagging for WordCamp US. And I know you've been on the organizing committee before. I have, yeah. On the same day, someone sent me this Reddit thread in r slash Australia saying, would you travel to the U.S. For tourism, for vacation? And everyone in the thread was just like, hell no, no way. I went there once. I'm not going back. You know, stop you in the airport. It's crazy. Luke, what are you talking about? Jonathan Are you saying there's something going on in my country right now? Luke Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm saying, like, I really do wonder. I'm not, obviously, WordCamp US is mostly people from the US, you know, traveling to it. But, you know, there is also an international component, especially, like, Canadians as well. Jonathan Well, I would argue that historically it's been closer to a 50-50. I don't recall offhand, but it's like these flagship events have been quite international in nature, which has been one of my favorite things. A lot of us from the U.S. Have gone to WordCamp Europe and so on and so forth. So it is probably accurate to say mostly, but it's historically been a non-trivial majority or a non-trivial number that have been international. So I think what the repository was saying is that the ticket sales are down, right? So I'm curious about how that is relative to pass. I don't recall. But yeah, I guess I wasn't surprised to read it, which makes me a bit sad. ([Time 0:12:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/be01cae6-655c-4208-b8f2-b25c4ddf88d3)) - **Matt's WordCamp Influence** - Matt apparently has final approval on WordCamp US speaker selection, although it's often implicit. - This opaqueness can lead to mixed perceptions about transparency and decision-making among the community. Transcript: Luke Your take on matt having like final approval of speaker selection was that the case do you recall when you were um that is what i recall uh having been at very least the unspoken case. Jonathan Like people wouldn't come out and directly say, oh, Matt's going to approve this. But there was some opaqueness about the final approval and how this goes. And then there could be surprises where like a special and it was positioned as a positive. But depending on how you looked at it, it could end up being taken as a as a negative. ([Time 0:14:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b518ab7a-2b64-43b6-8903-e28b7c28cfa5))