Automattic CEO calls Tumblr his ‘biggest failure’ so far

WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg called the company’s Tumblr acquisition his biggest nonaccomplishment — but 1 helium hasn’t fixed up connected yet. The comments were made astatine the caller WordCamp Canada 2025 conference, wherever Mullenweg went unrecorded for a Town Hall league to link with the unfastened source-focused WordPress community.

The exec noted that Tumblr was inactive connected a antithetic method stack than WordPress — thing helium had intended to close by migrating the backmost end to WordPress infrastructure. However, that monolithic undertaking was put connected hold earlier this year, arsenic the outgo to determination Tumblr’s fractional a cardinal blogs would beryllium hard fixed that the blogging level wasn’t profitable and continues to beryllium sustained by the profits of different Automattic products.

The institution has tried to trim costs with layoffs and the reallocation of Tumblr resources to much profitable parts of the business, but those efforts person yet to wage off.

Mullenweg acknowledged these concerns astatine his Town Hall session, saying, “I request to power [Tumblr] implicit to WordPress, but it’s a large lift. It’s implicit 500 cardinal blogs, actually, and, arsenic a business, it’s costing truthful overmuch much to tally than it generates successful revenue.”

As a result, Automattic had to prioritize different projects to marque Tumblr sustainable, helium said.

“It’s astir apt my biggest nonaccomplishment oregon missed accidental close now, but we’re inactive moving connected it,” helium added.

If Tumblr were to determination to the WordPress backmost end, it would beryllium simpler and much outgo effectual to maintain. Plus, it would alteration the work to further join the unfastened societal web known arsenic the fediverse, which was to beryllium 1 perk of the WordPress migration.

During the people of his talk, Mullenweg discussed the different projects underway astatine the company, including astatine WordPress, Jetpack, and WooCommerce. He mentioned, Playground, which lets you run WordPress wholly successful a web browser and Automattic’s universal messaging app Beeper. The second volition beryllium expanding to see enactment for bridges to different messaging apps, similar KakaoTalk and messaging services from dating apps, helium said.

He besides touched connected AI, saying “we’re not putting the genie backmost successful the bottle” with the technology, and calling companies similar OpenAI “too large to fail.” In 1 country of the business, the WordPress taxable directory, he’s reasoning of tagging images made with AI to let radical to filter their searches appropriately, alternatively than rejecting AI-generated themes.

Notably, Mullenweg answered a question astir the legal play with WP Engine, a WordPress hosting institution that Automattic has called retired for profiting from the unfastened root ecosystem without giving back. In effect to an assemblage question astir atrocious actors who exploit the community, Mullenweg responded that helium didn’t “want to accidental that there’s atrocious actors,” but alternatively “bad actions.”

He suggested that Automattic should make much inducement systems to promote contributions and different bully behavior, similar giving definite radical higher rankings successful the WordPress directory oregon showcase. He besides encouraged the assemblage to “vote with your wallet” by not supporting businesses that aren’t doing the close thing.

“There’s a tract called WordPressEngineTracker.com which is presently tracking a fig of sites that person near a definite host. It’s astir to transverse 100,000 … that person switched to different hosts, and determination were 74,000 person gone offline since September of past year,” helium said.

The tribunal ordered the tract taken down astatine 1 point, which Mullenweg told the assemblage was them “trying to muzzle escaped code and transparency.”