Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress, recently organized a session of questions and answers to Wordcamp Asia 2025, where he faced several difficult questions. The subjects included if it was open to discuss the change, to the steep learning curve of WordPress, and if it would reconsider the reduction of automattic contributions to WordPress Core.
As difficult as these questions be, Matt answered each of them graciously and focused on staying positive, even when he said no.
Mullenweg says that being adaptable to change is important
In one of these exchanges, someone asked what WordPress would look like in five years and he could not answer them. He explained that not having a plan beyond Gutenberg was essentially a functionality and not a bug, explaining that a short-term perspective is good for remaining agile in a rapidly evolving technological environment.
He said:
“Apart from Gutenberg, we did not have a roadmap that lasts six months or a year, nor a few versions, because the world changes in a way that you cannot predict.
But being responsive is, I think, really how organizations survive.
You know, Darwin, said it was not the most capable of the survival species. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. I think it’s also true for software. »»
The change does not happen to WordPress
In an appearance on the face of the importance of WordPress’s adaptation, Matt Mullenweg has traced the line to be adaptable to change in terms of governance.
Taco Verdonschot (Linkedin profile) got up to ask the question.
“I am Taco, co -owner of Progress Planner. I was wondering, you were talking about adaptability before and the most capable survival. This means being open to change. What we have seen in recent months is that people who were talking about change have been prohibited from the project. To what extent are you open to discuss change in the project?
Matt replied:
“Of course. Of course. I don’t want to go too far in this area, but I will say that talking about change do not prohibit you. There are other behaviors … But simply talking about change is something that we do almost every day. And we have changed a lot over the years. We have changed a lot in the past year. So yes. But I don’t want to talk to anyone personally. So keep it positive.
Call for change of governance
There have been many high -level calls for a change in the way WordPress is governed, notably by Joost de Valk, the creator of the SEO Yoast software and currently co -owner of the WordPress progress planner.
“Many things have happened in the past few months, that I think everything comes down to the above. I have often thought about how the WordPress world “worked” unhealthy. I spoke a lot slightly outside our industry in the past few months of what was going on and several people, independent of each other, described WordPress as “a cult” for me. And I understand why.
I think it’s time to let go of worship and change the leadership of the project. I have already said: we need a “table”. We can’t wait to do this during the years that will take Automattic and WP Engine to fight against this trial. As has already been reported, Matt recently declared in the status of the post that “it is difficult to imagine wanting to continue working on WordPress after that”. A few days later, he gave a completely conflicting message in the state of the word. However, he never returned to this first declaration or said that he had changed his mind. He did not come back either to speak to the community on which he turned his back. »»
Joost de Valk was supposed to speak to WordPress Asia 2025, but the co -owner of Progress Planner was there and asked the difficult question.
Mullenweg challenged to adapt to change
His declaration concerning the adaptable to change has set up another annoying moment at 6:55:47 minute Mark where Taco Verdonschot, co -owner of Progress Planner, resisted the microphone and asked Mullenweg if he was really committed to being adaptable.
Taco Verdonschot is previously Yoast SEO and currently sponsored to work on WordPress by Emilia Capital (owned by Joost de Valk and Marieke Van de Rakt).
Taco asked:
“I am Taco, co -owner of Progress Planner. I was wondering, you were talking about adaptability before and the most capable survival. This means being open to change. What we have seen in recent months is that people who were talking about change have been prohibited from the project. To what extent are you open to discuss change in the project? »»
Mullenweg replied:
“Of course. Of course. I don’t want to go too far in this area, but I will say that talking about change do not prohibit you. There are other behaviors … But simply talking about change is something that we do almost every day. And we have changed a lot over the years. We have changed a lot in the past year. So yes. But I don’t want to talk to anyone personally. So keep it positive.
Star image by Shutterstock / Starline
