Matt Mullenweg: belief

Transcript context

…Incredible. Okay. I have a question for you. It's kind of a hot seat question. As you talked, I wonder, I feel like people are thinking of this. So you've been talking about PE companies being often bad. You're buying Tumblr. You've talked about laying off a bunch of people, turning it all around. How's that different from a PE company, Matt? Yeah, and I agree with you that just because it's private equity doesn't mean it's bad. And also, something people say is like, "Hey, wait, don't you have private equity investors as well at Automattic?" And we do. Now, they own usually a small percentage, sometimes under 1%, and they don't have control of the company. So I think there's a distinguish. Is it a minority investment or a control investment? And with WP Engine, Silver Lake controls the company. And when they control the company, I think there's a spectrum of actions. Obviously, being more efficient is great, and we should all strive for that. And I think every business does, whether it's private equity or our business or things that are founder controlled. You always want to be more efficient. Now, there's some spectrum there where you over-optimize, or you could have dark patterns. Right now on WP Engine, it's very difficult to cancel your accounts. Actually, I think as of today, 45,000 sites have left, so they're, I think, down to 600. Yeah, well, because their customers have realized like, "Hey, this isn't WordPress, this isn't..." or, "They're suing the guy who started WordPress, so maybe we should not support this commercially." So we have the site wordpressenginetracker.com that sort of shows in real time the sites that are leaving. It's kind of an exciting thing to see that number tick up. Actually, maybe a good example as well, even though there's a lot of negativity, you actually look at how people are voting with their wallets. They're leaving. So I think you have to judge as well, just look at the track record. So one of the things I'm very proud of with Automattic is we are an acquirer of first resort, and we have founders that have sold to us. Paul Mayne at Day One is a great example that didn't need to sell. They're wildly profitable, could have run it himself for a long, long time, but people choose to join because they feel like we'll be good stewards of it in the future, and ultimately just have to look at the track record. So I think don't judge it by what it's called, judge it by the actions over time. And I hope to continue building that reputation for a place that's a good steward of communities and software and everything else for many years to come. Matt, we covered so much. I asked you all the hard questions and more. Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you want to leave listeners with? Any last thoughts, comments, insights, stories?…

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