About Matt Mullenweg

I am Matt Mullenweg. I identify as Ma.tt, but legally, you can’t have dots in your name in the United States. My goals in life are to democratize publishing, commerce, and messaging.

I travel a lot. In 2023, I visited 63 cities, 18 countries, and my average velocity was 41.9 miles per hour. I’ve put some more stats further down.

I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I write code, poetry, prose, and music, often in support of those three goals, but sometimes just to make the world a more beautiful place. I love taking photos and have posted over 30,000 to this site, hence my common username photomatt.

WordPress

I am a founding developer of WordPress, the Open Source software used by over 40% of the web, including this site. The website says WordPress is “a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform” but more importantly WordPress is a part of who I am. Like eating, breathing, music, I can’t not work on WordPress. We celebrated 20 years of WordPress in 2023. (I was 19 when I started. I’m 40 now.) The project touches many people, something I’ve recently begun to appreciate. I consider myself very lucky to be able to work on something I love so much. Every year I give a “State of the Word” address.

Professional

I used to do consulting and go to school in Houston, then I moved to San Francisco where I worked at CNET Networks. I left in late 2005 to found a company called Automattic, which is now the force behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, Beeper, Mesh, Jetpack, WooCommerce, Simplenote, Longreads, The Atavist, and many other products. Our mission is to make the web a better place.

Though Automattic is my main focus, I also advise and invest in startups through my company Audrey Capital. You can peruse the portfolio of companies on the Audrey site.

See also: Wikipedia (needs updating), Grokipedia, CrunchBase.

Distributed Work

Much like WordPress sought to change the way we publish on the web, Automattic has set out to change the way we work. We are an entirely distributed company — with more than 1,400 employees working from more than 80 countries, and no physical headquarters. We are a company that works on, and for, the web. Before Covid, I ran a podcast and website about this at Distributed.blog to convince everyone it was the future.

Adventures and Travel

I love to travel and explore! I’ve run a 5k on all 7 continents in 7 months; completed two half marathons; hiked the Kumano Kodo, Camino Santiago, and Philmont; rode ~100 miles on horses in Iceland; sailed ~1,000 miles off the coast of Australia; seen total solar eclipses in Antartica (2021) and Illinois (2024); taken tracking and outdoor survival course with Tom Brown; SCUBA certified; taken urban escape and evasion course; been to Burning Man 8+ times; swam with blue whales in Tonga; been to 55+ weddings; have eaten at 76% of the top 50 restaurants list from 2016 but only 34% of the 2024 list; have tracked over 4.5 million miles of travel since 2009. All that said, I can’t speak any other languages well, cook, or remember basic things. 🙃

According to Swarm, I’ve been to these places:

70 countries (and territories): Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Belize, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Sint Maarten, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.

958 cities, here are the top 200: Amagansett, Amsterdam, Anaheim, Antwerp, Arjeplog, Arlington, Aspen, Athens, Atlanta, Austin, Bal Harbour, Baltimore, Barcelona, Belgrade, Bellevue, Bend, Berkeley, Berlin, Berriedale, Beverly Hills, Big Sky, Big Sur, Bilbao, Black Rock City, Boston, Bozeman, Brooklyn, Brookshire, Brussels, Calistoga, Callao, Cameron, Cancún, Canyon Point, Cape Town, Carmel, Casole d’Elsa, Charleston, Chicago, Chiyoda, Cody, Copenhagen, Daly City, Davos, Denver, Doha, Dorval, Dubai, Dublin, Dublin City, Dubrovnik, Dulles, East Hampton, Edinburgh, El Prat de Llobregat, Emeryville, Florence, Frankfurt am Main, Galveston, Gardermoen, Geneva, Grapevine, Half Moon Bay, Hamilton Island, Healdsburg, Hillingdon, Hobart, Honolulu, Houston, Humble, Jackson, Kailua-Kona, Kamakura, Kastrup, Katy, Kawaihae, Keflavik, Kenner, Kyoto, La Jolla, Lake Buena Vista, Lakeway, Las Vegas, Lisbon, London, Long Island City, Los Angeles, Luxor, Madison, Madrid, Makati City, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Marfa, Märsta, Mascot, Memphis, Menlo Park, Mexico City, Miami, Miami Beach, Mill Valley, Minato, Minneapolis, Montecito, Monterey, Montreal, Mountain View, Munich, Naoshima-chō, Napa, Narita, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Newark, Oakland, Ojai, Orlando, Osaka, Oslo, Ottawa, Oxford, Oxon Hill, Pacific Grove, Page, Palm Springs, Palma, Palo Alto, Paris, Park City, Pearland, Pebble Beach, Petaluma, Pflugerville, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pirque, Pittsburgh, Portland, Porto, Positano, Pudahuel, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Arenas, Queens, Rancho Palos Verdes, Reno, Reykjavik, Richmond, Roissy-en-France, Round Rock, Saint Helena, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Clemente, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San José del Cabo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Santa Rosa, Sausalito, Savannah, Schiphol, Schwechat, Scottsdale, Seattle, Seoul, Shinjuku, Singapore, Sofia, Soho, Southbank, St Louis, Stanford, Stockholm, Sydney, Tanabe, Telluride, Teterboro, Teton Village, Tokyo, Totsukawa-mura, Trogir, Tucson, Tulum, Turin, Tybee Island, Vancouver, Venice, Vienna, Washington, West Hollywood, Whistler, Yountville.

Giving Back

With returns from Audrey Capital, I have a Scholars program that sponsors tuition. In Houston my main charitable support goes to the Rothko Chapel, Hermann Park, Emery Weiner, Docfest, and HSPVA.

In San Francisco I’m on the board of Illuminate, the non-profit behind the Bay Lights, Golden Mile, and so much more. I also support the Long Now Foundation, Archive.org, and am a trustee at The Institute. I have a fun Dogpatch hacker warehouse called TinkerTendo.

These are other charities or organizations that I’ve supported in a way that is significant to me. Some are working on basic survival issues, and some are addressing problems that we’re lucky to have in this modern technological age, but all are important to me: Alaska Wilderness League, Apache Foundation, Black & Brown Founders, charity: water, Code2040, (board), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Grist, Innocence Project, Johns Hopkins, MAPS, MONA, New Museum, Project Include, US Sky & Snowboard.

Board Seats

Currently, I’m on three non-profit boards: EcoAmerica, Illuminate, and the WordPress Foundation. Was previously with Grist and the New Mesuem. I’m the chair of the Automattic board, and try to make time for one other commercial board. The first time I did that was for Gitlab through their IPO, and currently it’s with Field Effect, a cybersecurity company based in Ottawa.

Press, Podcasts, and Speaking

I will spend an hour on any WordPress community podcast once a year, for free. I travel every year to WordCamp US, WordCamp Europe, and WordCamp Asia, and try to catch other WordCamps and WordPress meetups whenever I can. I will appear on prominent podcasts to promote the mission of democratizing publishing, commerce, and messaging at no cost, or to share my personal story.

Commercial speaking is a very high bar for me: If you would like me to speak at your commercial event, a 200k honorarium will be required for either me or a non-profit I designate, and I will handle all travel and logistics myself.

A few notable links:

For more, here’s an archived collection of articles about my work over the years, as well as podcast interviews and past speaking engagements. I’ve also spoken at hundreds of WordPress events and WordCamps.

If you need a press/conference headshot, try this or this.

Early Teachers

Growing up in Houston’s public school system, I had the good fortune of being exposed to a number of incredible teachers who really cared and had a big impact on my development. I’d love to thank them by name: Anthony Maxie, Craig Green, John Schutza, Conrad Johnson, Bubbha Thomas, Ron Thornton, David Caceres, Kelly Dean, Al Campbell, Bash Whittaker, Doc Morgan, Rickey Campbell, Scott Roman, Stephen Crawford, Woody Witt, Warren Sneed, Dennis Dotson, Noe Marmolejo, and Ross Lence.

Links to Amazon have an affiliate tag auto-added to them, which funds my gadget-testing.