Matthew Mullenweg

Matt Mullenweg
Mullenweg in 2019
Born
Matthew Charles Mullenweg

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

  1. ^ a b 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. ^ a b 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.

External links