Matt Mullenweg

Last updated
Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg.jpg
Mullenweg in 2019
Born
Matthew Charles Mullenweg

(1984-01-11) January 11, 1984 (age 40)
Houston, Texas, U.S.
Education University of Houston
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, Founder & CEO, [1] Automattic
Principal, Audrey Capital [2]
Lead Developer, WordPress Foundation
Organization Automattic
Known forDeveloping WordPress.com
Website ma.tt

Matthew Charles Mullenweg (born January 11, 1984) is an American entrepreneur and web developer. He is known for developing WordPress and founding Automattic.

Contents

Early life and education

Mullenweg was born and raised in Houston, Texas. His father, Chuck, was a computer programmer. Mullenweg was raised Catholic. [3] He attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. After graduating from high school, he studied philosophy and political science at the University of Houston, eventually dropping out in 2004. [4] [5]

Early career

Mullenweg at WordCamp Germany 2009 MattMullenwegWordCampJena2009 001.jpg
Mullenweg at WordCamp Germany 2009

In January 2003, Mullenweg and Mike Little started WordPress as a fork of b2. [6] They were soon joined by original b2 developer Michel Valdrighi. Mullenweg was 19 years old at the time. [7] [5] In March 2003, he co-founded the Global Multimedia Protocols Group (GMPG) with Eric Meyer and Tantek Çelik. In April 2004, he helped launch Ping-O-Matic, a mechanism for notifying search engines about blog updates. [8]

In October 2004, he joined CNET to work on WordPress, dropping out of college and moving to San Francisco. [9]

Automattic

Mullenweg at WordCamp Bulgaria 2011 Matt-at-wordcamp-bulgaria-2011.jpg
Mullenweg at WordCamp Bulgaria 2011

Mullenweg left CNET in October 2005 to focus on WordPress full-time. [10] Soon after he announced Akismet, an initiative to reduce comment and trackback spam. [11] In December, he founded Automattic, with Akismet and WordPress as its flagship products. In January 2006, Mullenweg recruited former Yahoo! executive Toni Schneider to join Automattic as CEO.[ citation needed ]

Mullenweg at WordCamp Europe 2013 Matt Mullenweg 01.JPG
Mullenweg at WordCamp Europe 2013

In January 2014, Mullenweg became CEO of Automattic. Schneider moved to work on new projects at Automattic. [1] From 2017 to 2019, Mullenweg also served as a board member for GitLab, Inc. [12]

Mullenweg, together with Naveen Selvadurai and Audrey Kim, runs the angel investment firm Audrey Capital, which has backed nearly 30[ as of? ] companies since 2008. [13]

Mullenweg began a three-month sabbatical from his role as CEO at the beginning of February 2024. [14] Later that month, Mullenweg engaged in a public feud with a transgender Tumblr user who, frustrated with the site's failure to address transphobic harassment, posted that she wished Mullenweg would die in a comedic way. The user was subsequently banned. Responding to user uproar, Mullenweg addressed the ban in posts on his personal Tumblr blog, in which he characterized the post as a death threat, and shared private account information about the user. Mullenweg also responded to individual commenters on Tumblr in posts and direct messages, and went to Twitter to respond to the banned user's tweets about the situation. [15] [16] A few days later, transgender employees of Tumblr and Automattic made a post on the official Tumblr staff blog characterizing his response as "unwarranted and harmful" and stating that he did not speak on their behalf. They also said that the user's post was not a realistic threat of violence and not the reason for her ban. [17]

Philanthropy

Mullenweg sat on the board of non-profit magazine Grist.org. [18] Mullenweg has supported the Apache Software Foundation, [19] [20] The Bay Lights , [21] and Charity: Water. [22] [23]

See also

Related Research Articles

WordPress is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, mailing lists and Internet forum, media galleries, membership sites, learning management systems and online stores. Available as free and open-source software, WordPress is among the most popular content management systems – it was used by 43.1% of the top 10 million websites as of December 2023.

Browse Happy is a website urging users to upgrade their web browsers.

GameSpot is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition to the information produced by GameSpot staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums. It has been owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gravatar</span> Web service providing individuals with a "Globally Recognized Avatar"

Gravatar is a service for providing globally unique avatars and was created by Tom Preston-Werner. Since 2007, it has been owned by Automattic, having integrated it into their WordPress.com blogging platform.

In blogging, a ping is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updated. An XML-RPC signal is sent from the weblog to one or more Ping servers, as specified by originating weblog), to notify a list of their "Services" of new content on the weblog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WordPress.com</span> Blogging platform owned and hosted online by Automattic

WordPress.com is a web building platform for self-publishing that is popular for blogging and other works. It is owned and operated by Automattic, Inc. It is run on a modified version of the WordPress software. This website provides free blog hosting for registered users and is financially supported via paid upgrades, "VIP" services and advertising.

Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company which was founded in August 2005 and is most notable for WordPress.com, as well as its contributions to WordPress. The company's name is a play on founder Matt Mullenweg's first name and the word "automatic".

Akismet is a service that filters spam from comments, trackbacks, and contact form messages. The filter operates by combining information about spam captured on all participating sites and then using those spam rules to block future spam. Akismet is offered by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. Akismet was launched on October 25, 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Habari</span>

Habari was a free and open source blog engine written in PHP and currently supports MySQL, SQLite and PostgreSQL for the database backend. It got its name from the Swahili greeting habari, which means "(what's the) news".

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tumblr</span> Microblogging and social networking website

Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BuddyPress</span>

BuddyPress is an open-source social networking software package owned by Automattic since 2008. It is a plugin that can be installed on WordPress to transform it into a social network platform. BuddyPress is designed to allow schools, companies, sports teams, or any other niche community to start their own social network or communication tool.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simplenote</span> Note-taking application

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Preston-Werner</span> American software developer & entrepreneur

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Little</span> English web developer (born 1962)

Mike Little is an English web developer and writer. He is the co-founder of the free and open source web software WordPress along with Matt Mullenweg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present)</span> American technology company

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational technology company that focuses on media and online business. It is the second and current incarnation of the company, after Verizon Communications acquired the core assets of its predecessor and merged them with AOL in 2017. The resulting subsidiary entity was briefly called Oath Inc. In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write down the combined value of its purchases of AOL and Yahoo! by $4.6 billion, roughly half; the company would be renamed Verizon Media the following month in January 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ActivityPub</span> Decentralized social networking protocol

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Openverse</span>

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References

  1. 1 2 A new CEO for Automattic Archived 2014-02-18 at the Wayback Machine . Toni.org. Retrieved on 2014-05-23.
  2. ↑ "Audrey Capital". Archived from the original on September 17, 2014. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Cardinal Blogging". Matt Mullenweg. 2006-10-03. Archived from the original on 2022-11-02. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
  4. ↑ Drell, Lauren. "We Don't Need No Education: Meet the Millionaire Dropouts". AOL Small Business. Archived from the original on 2014-05-05. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
  5. 1 2 Matusow, Cathy (October 28, 2004). "The Blog Age". Houston Press. Archived from the original on April 10, 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Evolution of b2, 180° from WordPress!". b2evolution.net. Archived from the original on 2022-12-19. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  7. ↑ Kaufmann, Zach (January 2009). "Do You Blog on WordPress? Thank Matt Mullenweg". Young Money. 7 (6): 2. ISSN   1098-8300. Archived from the original on 2008-12-16. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
  8. ↑ "Spring Ping Thing". Photo Matt. 2004-04-19. Archived from the original on 2007-11-27.
  9. ↑ Matt (2004-10-28). "Houston Press and CNET". Matt Mullenweg. Archived from the original on 2023-10-02. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
  10. ↑ "Leaving CNET". Ma.tt. October 21, 2005. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  11. ↑ "Akismet Stops Spam". Ma.tt. October 26, 2005. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  12. ↑ "WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg Joins the GitLab Board as Company Momentum Hits an All-Time High". GitLab, Inc. Archived from the original on 2019-08-30. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Audrey Capital". Audrey.co. Archived from the original on December 12, 2020. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
  14. ↑ Mullenweg, Matt (2024-02-02). "Samattical". Matt Mullenweg. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  15. ↑ Silberling, Amanda (2024-02-23). "Tumblr CEO publicly spars with trans user over account ban, revealing private account names in the process". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  16. ↑ de Luna, Elizabeth (2024-02-24). "Tumblr CEO's public 'meltdown' is mocked, memed by users". Mashable. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  17. ↑ "A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic". Tumblr. 2024-02-24. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  18. ↑ "Annual Report 2020". Grist. Archived from the original on 2024-02-24. Retrieved 2024-02-21.
  19. ↑ "The Apache Software Foundation's "Apache Way" continues to gain momentum, recognition and influence on the future of open source technologies". Apache Software Foundation. 2008-06-17. Archived from the original on 2024-02-21. Retrieved 2024-02-21.
  20. ↑ "ASF Milestones". Apache Software Foundation. 2019. Archived from the original on 2024-02-21. Retrieved 2024-02-21.
  21. ↑ "Fixes, funding brighten 'Bay Lights' day". San Francisco Chronicle. 2013-06-15. Archived from the original on 2014-09-17. Retrieved 2014-09-16.
  22. ↑ "My Charity:Water". Charity:Water. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-03-09. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
  23. ↑ "My Charity:Water". Charity:Water. 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-12-30. Retrieved 2014-09-16.
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