“Part of my life’s work is trying to make WordPress something that looks more like a city. Companies always die. Cities never die. There’s networks of things that can be created, and once they reach a certain scale, they’re somewhat invulnerable.”
-Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg
This week, TechCrunch published a four-part series of articles that take an in-depth look at the longevity and momentum of Automattic’s business, with the underlying premise that we’ve done everything wrong — according to venture capitalists.
Despite confounding our critics, our company has evolved and grown over the last 16 years. Today, we continue to be champions for open source, distributed work, and democratizing publishing and e-commerce.
“Long term, if I had to bet on what’s the most important platform, 50 years from now, I’d bet on the web over anything else that exists today. It’s the most robust, resilient, creative, the most free and open, and the Cambrian explosion of creativity on the web hasn’t stopped,” Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg says in the interview.
Our belief in the power of the open web underlies almost every aspect of what we do — from building websites to hiring a fully distributed workforce across 89 countries. Good ideas and talented individuals come from anywhere. Automattic’s incredibly talented staff is a testament to that.
One of the insights highlighted by TechCrunch is the ethos behind how we hire. As observed in the article, a combination of in-person interviews and the traditional desire for “culture fit” can hinder diversity. During our recruitment process, we give candidates the option of a written interview, where their faces or voices don’t have to be part of the process.
TechCrunch’s stellar editorial package is organized around our origin story, open-source software development, acquisitions, future strategy, and distributed work.
Read the articles here (TechCrunch subscription required).