Starting tomorrow, I’m joining Automattic to work on WordPress.com. I’m excited! It’s going to be a fun journey, and a new chapter in my career: it’s the first time I’ll be working in a company this size: Automattic is now over 1000 folks, and it’s still entirely distributed. It’s pretty amazing that a company built on the principles of open source software has grown and survived this long. I strongly believe that the Automattic mission is crucial and important: we cannot let big corporations hold our content and attention hostage, and the best way to do that is to enable even non-technical folks to self-host, whether it be blogs, eCommerce, or their social network. There’s obviously still a long way to go to achieve this mission, but I see very few companies still committed to the open Internet of the 90s, and I’m lucky that Automattic is one of them.

Leaving Doist

As is the case with every one of my previous companies, leaving is bittersweet. It was wonderful to work on Todoist, the simple todo-list that so many people love (and rant about), and Twist, which I believe will be a sleeper hit in the next few years (it’s so, so much better than Slack). Saying goodbye is always difficult, but I leave with fond memories 🙂

A Look Back & Forward

It’s been a long story for me & WordPress: I started this blog on B2, and switched it over to WordPress 18 years ago. I learnt a lot of good PHP by reading WordPress code, and it’s what made writing a blog (all in vogue then) possible. While my Twitter presence has largely diluted both the quality & quantity of my posts here, over the years, I’ve realized the importance of writing in a place you control, and using these social networks just for communication and publicity. I still believe—more than ever—that the best thing any young professional can do for their career is to write, and WordPress is still the best way to get started.

And now I get to contribute, at least a little bit, to the WordPress story. And this time, all in the open through Calypso and Gutenberg. Here’s to the next adventure!