Combating Epidemics With Internet
In 2006 David Eagleman, who wrote one of my favorite books, Sum, wrote a letter published in Nature: Kathleen Morrison, in News & Views (“Failure and how to avoid it” Nature 440, 752–754; 2006),...
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Corner Office Interview
If you pick up a print edition of the Sunday New York Times today you’ll see the Corner Office interview with David Gelles in the business section. (Hat tip to Mary Conrad for the picture, I haven’t...
View ArticleSecond-Order Effects
Derek Thompson’s writing for the Atlantic has been some of the most interesting this year. His latest, The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically, is worth a close read. He gives good arguments for...
View ArticleState of the Word 2020
This tumultuous year, two things really helped me get through it: my colleagues at Automattic and the community of WordPress. At the end of the year I usually deliver a speech to the WP community we...
View ArticleJack Dorsey and Running Two Companies
I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Dorsey for the Distributed podcast, a conversation that ended up going a bit deeper and longer than previous episodes. In preparation for the interview I kept...
View ArticleWhat’s In My Bag, 2020
Instead of sharing what’s in my backpack this year, I want to share the apps and pandemic purchases that were meaningful to me, along with a few words on each. Something I haven’t shared with you yet...
View ArticleFarnam Street and Postlight
I recorded two interviews very far apart from each other, but which have surprisingly both come out today. The first is for one of my favorite sites on the web, Farnam Street. I was honored to be...
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Autonomous and Beautiful Home Devices
Of all the smart home upgrades I’ve made, replacing all my regular smoke detectors with Nest Protects (Google’s smoke detector) has been the one that I regret the most. I don’t really need a smart...
View ArticleThirty-seven
I turn 37 today. I look around and I feel incredibly lucky to be writing this after a topsy-turvy year. I have health. I have friends whom I love. These are all good reasons to feel optimistic about...
View ArticleIceland Film
I wanted to share with you all a short film I made with the help of Stephen Bollinger, with videos I made a few years ago on a photography trip to Iceland with Om and Mark. I hope it provides five...
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New WhiteHouse.gov
After you’ve watched the amazing poem from Amanda Gorman, check out the new WhiteHouse.gov that re-launched today using WordPress & Gutenberg with a number of cool features including dark mode,...
View ArticleRevue Joins Twitter
Very excited to share the news that Revue is joining Twitter. I’m a huge fan of the idea of better newsletters and Automattic was the largest investor in Revue. I’m looking forward to seeing what the...
View ArticleCompounding Ice
I learned something novel about how the ice age happened from this Freakishly Strong Base post by Morgan Housel: The prevailing idea before [Wladimir] Köppen was that ice ages occur when the earth’s...
View ArticleParse.ly & Automattic
Excited to welcome Parse.ly to the Automattic family, in an acquisition that’s closing today. They’ll be joining our enterprise group, WPVIP. The deal has been nicely covered in the Wall Street...
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Invest Like the Best and Building Worlds
On a Founder’s Field Guide episode with Patrick O’Shaughnessy we had an interesting conversation that covered a lot new ground, including an idea I’ve been playing around with on, as Patrick put it:...
View ArticleDoctorow on IP
It’s not every day you see noted writer Cory Doctorow refer to a column as “the piece I’m most proud of,” and his essay in Locus Magazine on IP doesn’t disappoint, connecting the free software...
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Wix and Their Dirty Tricks
Wix, the website builder company you may remember from stealing WordPress code and lying about it, has now decided the best way to gain relevance is attacking the open source WordPress community in a...
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CC Search to join WordPress.org
The WordPress community has long advocated for a repository with GPL-compatible images, and it’s time to listen to that need. CC Search, a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) image search engine, is joining...
View ArticleSquarespace Direct Listing
Squarespace filed their S-1 last month, and went a direct listing route for their stock today under the ticker SQSP, so I’ve been getting lots of questions on my thoughts on their business. It’s...
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2021 Streaming Kit
My streaming setup post last year got an amazing reception — there are similar setups being used by executives across the board, from companies fundraising to several I know of with 100B+ valuations....
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WordPress 18
Today marks eighteen years since the very first release of WordPress. I consider myself so lucky to have co-founded the project alongside Mike Little. Who could have imagined that our nights and...
View ArticleWCEU Open Thread
I just wrapped up a fun session with Matías and Brian, and though we covered a lot of ground we weren’t able to get to all the questions from the audience. Starting at 2:58: So this is an open thread,...
View ArticleDay One at Automattic
I’m not sure when I first came across the critically acclaimed Day One product, which is the best private blogging and journaling app out there, but I began seriously using it daily in 2016 when my...
View ArticleOpen Insulin
One of my big themes is that open source will transform every industry, with key examples being WordPress in web publishing, WooCommerce in online commerce, Wikipedia in reference, and...
View ArticleFunding, Buyback, and Hiring
In February of this year, Automattic closed a new primary funding round of $288M, bringing in some great new partners including BlackRock, Wellington, Schonfeld, and Alta Park. Existing investors...
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