The Ledger
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Mullenweg: Wix violated copyright by making derived WordPress code proprietary
“What we often go to bat for and fight for, including with this company called Wix, is what they did was they took our code, and then the code they derived from it, so the modifications they met, were, they said were proprietary and secret to Wix. And so what w…”
Automattic didn't ban political talk, only anonymous internal political posts
“And we never banned talking about politics. We did ban talking about some of it anonymously. So we said, some of these things, if you want to talk about this, that's fine, but do it under your own name.”
Every company acquired by Automattic eventually abandoned its physical office
“Usually what happens is when the company joins, we acquire them, they say, oh, we really need their office. We say, okay, we'll pay the rent, we'll keep it going, we'll keep the lease going. But then once they start to learn our way of working, fewer and fewer…”
An extended legal fight with Wix could have bankrupted Automattic
“When Wix did that, they had way more money than us. So a legal battle would have taken years, and even possibly bankrupted automatic, depending on how long it went.”
High-growth companies like Stripe and SpaceX no longer need IPOs
“Companies like Stripe, SpaceX they've gone to a hundred billion plus valuations as private companies, so you don't need to go public anymore.”
Automattic received a $200M buyout offer with only 20 employees
“Because we were only 15, 20 people at the time. I still owned well over half the company. And so this idea that the for-profit company that we'd been building for about two years was gonna be, had this offer. A very serious offer turned a million dollars was r…”
Automattic built a razor-and-blades model with free WordPress and paid add-ons
“Part of the idea was that WordPress would always be free, and that's maybe the razor, but perhaps we could figure out some razor blades we could sell, some add-on services that would be really most useful to people who are using it more seriously, and then bus…”
Automattic raised $10M at a $200M valuation for secondary liquidity
“So what they did was they took the two hundred million dollars, and they said, okay, that'll be the valuation of the company. We'll do a new round of investment, but instead of putting in one million dollars, we're going to put in ten million dollars into the …”
Mullenweg turned down a $200M buyout to keep his dream job
“And when I really thought about it, what I would most want to do. I would want to code every day. I'd want to travel the world and meet WordPress users all over the world. I'd want to make software that people used and do it with people I enjoyed working with.…”
An Automattic employee was arrested in Belarus for anti-regime blogging
“We had a colleague get arrested in Belarus because he was blogging and speaking out against the dictatorship there and things.”
Resold WordPress invites on eBay revealed monetization potential to founders
“And then these tickets started to sell on eBay. So people would get the free ticket, and then they would start to list it or sell it, and tickets were starting to sell for like, 9000 dollars, 120 dollars on eBay. And we were like, huh, maybe people will pay fo…”
Automattic currently employs staff distributed across 93 countries
“I have colleagues in 93 countries.”
Mullenweg incorporated Automattic via LegalZoom, paying early staff $1,000 monthly
“I incorporated Automatic on a website like LegalZoom, like one of these, like you press a few buttons and it becomes a C Corp. So I incorporated the company, and yeah, just started to pay the first few people. You know, not a lot, like a thousand bucks a month…”