On the A8C & WP Engine drama

I’ve been getting a ton of DMs and pings asking me what’s going on with the WordPress/Automattic/WP Engine drama. 

First – a bit of history.

When I ran Pragmatic (an agency specializing in WordPress), I was a loyal customer and avid fan of WP Engine. I started using their service even before they were officially launched in the UK. I’ve attended and enjoyed their events, drunk drinks and dinner they’ve paid for, and enthusiastically promoted their services in writing and in person. Cinco Coates (one of their earliest support folks) and I grab a drink if I’m in Austin and reminisce about the days he used to have to leave a bar, go to his truck and reboot our VPS because all our client sites were down.

Over time, the reliability and quality of the WP Engine service improved a lot, and I got to know and like a lot of folks there—Fabio Torlini, Heather Brunner, Jason Cohen and a bunch who have since left. I valued their focus on the business side of WordPress and their approach to lead generation and joint value propositions. That all ended (totally amicably) when I sold my agency. 

I thought it was important to note this context.

On to the recent drama.

Now, I work (happily) at Automattic. I’m hoping to bring some clarity and perspective. This is my personal opinion only.

For me, the core issue in this drama is (alleged) trademark infringement. I think (I am not a lawyer!) that Automattic’s cease and desist (particularly the exhibits) demonstrate clear non-compliance with fair use of the WordPress trademark (regardless of any recent edits) – e.g. use of “the WordPress experts”, “WordPress hosting”, etc. I remember having to be careful about how we positioned and marketed our agency for this exact same reason. There’s a lot else swirling around, but this feels objective, clear and easy to understand.

The WordPress trademark, licensing agreements and relationships between Matt, Automattic, WordPress.org and the WordPress foundation have not changed substantially for years (probably the addition of Newfold Digital as a sublicensee is the only thing that’s materially changed since WP Engine was founded).

Trademarks, copyright, and reserved terms are globally and universally critical parts of corporate law and strategy. It is the responsibility of all businesses to ensure compliance with the law and that they understand the commercial landscape and constraints of their actions. Ignorance is not a valid defense.

So yeh. If you infringe a trademark and refuse to negotiate commercially, you should expect legal action.

What about the contributions and private equity stuff?

For me, speaking as an individual, this is more about the choices that we want to make as a community. If the trademark stuff is the letter of the law, this is its spirit. I’m not fully familiar with Silver Lake specifically but I do know personally of plenty of examples of private equity extracting so much value from companies and ecosystems that it ends up in destruction – and there’s plenty of documented examples online. Like a tapeworm that ends up killing the cow by eating so much of the cow’s food that the cow itself starves and dies – as does the tapeworm (but by then the tapeworm has reproduced and gone on to infect the other cows).

Are WP Engine and Silver Lake allowed to maximize profit by minimizing costs? Yes, in accordance with the letter of the law.

But we all have choices about the communities we want to live in. We can choose to go to the supermarket-that-doesn’t-pay-tax or the hosting-company-that-allegedly-doesn’t-contribute-enough-back-to-WordPress. Maybe it’s cheaper or more convenient. But if we do, we should accept the consequences that our communities (and therefore ourselves!) will be poorer in the long term.

On Matt.

I have a theory about Matt and it’s been helpful to me – maybe it’ll help you too. He is a very strongly principled person and he communicates those values very clearly (e.g. the Automattic creed). I really admire that about him. But it works both ways: if he perceives that you are transgressing those principles, or accusing him of doing so, you should expect a very strong reaction.

(It’s worth noting that knowing his principles doesn’t necessarily make it easy to predict his response to any given question or situation, but I feel confident that as long as I’m not transgressing those principles, he’ll respect and value our interactions regardless of whether we agree or not.)

Please remember, Matt is just a person, trying his best and giving a heck of a lot more than he takes from this ecosystem. If you disagree with his actions or approach, please try to criticize those objectively rather than attack him personally. Personal attacks diminish us all.

What’s my take on the broader context?

Look; the WordPress market has matured. The pie isn’t growing as fast as it once was and that changed context means that competition will increase as businesses continue to pursue growth. What was once a non-zero sum game starts to look more like zero sum. That’s the economic reality right now and not just within WordPress. Zero sum games have different constraints and therefore incentivise different strategies, tactics and leadership styles. They have a very different vibe. But regardless of the context, we still all have choices about how we choose to do business.

What am I focused on?

I’m motivated by non-zero sum outcomes. I want win-win situations; win-win-win if possible. With the role I have at Automattic, that’s what I’m focusing on. How can we use Web3 and crypto (and AI!) to create the conditions for cooperation and therefore unlock more growth? Actually, I think this is a really exciting time. AI and crypto fundamentally change the context of the web. Disruption means opportunity, opportunity favors innovation and innovation favors open systems. 

In summary.

The solutions to this situation are actually very simple and quite clear:

1. Companies operating in this space must comply with the law (in this case specifically trademark law).
2. We all have agency to wield power with our wallets to shape the future we want for ourselves and our community.
3. Let’s try to be good humans together. I feel bad for the good people at WP Engine who are impacted by this. I feel bad for Matt for the abuse he’s receiving. Let’s all try to be a little kinder.

Before having his wife inject him with 400mg of LSD on his deathbed, Aldous Huxley said:

“It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.’”

— Alex Olshonsky (@oloal) May 24, 2022

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