I’ve been a WordPress.com customer for over 10 years —- resulting in this old school blog. I have annual receipts with privately held Automattic, mostly owned by entrepreneur Matt Mullenweg. Matt, formerly an Austin resident, lives in Houston with a prior stint in Northern California. Over 40% of all websites on the internet use WordPress. A lot of people have cracked the code and become wealthy because of Matt’s platform.
At some point there must have been a cordial relationship between the WordPress mother ship and the WP Engine landing pod. WP Engine is a large managed hosting company using WordPress products in Austin. Matt is concerned that WP Engine is not contributing much to their open source model.
WP Engine opportunistically associated with WordPress – and competes with Automattic directly. It has been selling products based on the free WordPress platform for over a decade. This is not just a group of slackers in Austin running a lifestyle company.
It’s a large corporation that secured funding from private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. Matt has a valid point here. Another geek war to keep an eye on.
With 2025 just around the corner, I’m ready to move on from WordPress. One possibility is substack. Stay tuned.
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