The first part of my career was dedicated to building and running websites. I started in 1994, so everything was custom-made, but as the years went by, new solutions started appearing to streamline website creation. After many experiments based on phpnuke and its imitations, one day, some time around 2006 I think, I discovered WordPress, and never looked back. (Well, to be fair, I constantly look at alternatives, I just couldn’t find a valuable one over the past 18 years).
Shortly after discovering WordPress I started working on a large project (for the time) building a community of 4×4 and off-road fans. One of the requirements was to allow every member to have their blog, and that’s when I dove deep into WordPress multi-user, which at the time was a separate release. I am not telling all this to brag about my WordPress history, but to explain how when I started a blog with my friend Anne in 2009 we naturally picked WordPress, and why up to 2010 I knew of Matt Mullenweg as the co-founder of the WordPress open-source project, but had no idea that Automattic, his company, existed.
In 2009, I was wrapping up the first leg of my career, 15 years spent learning as much as I could about websites and building many as a one-man orchestra. I had partners handling business and sales, but for the most part, I was responsible for all technical and design aspects. This period of my career was not just about building websites; it was about exploring the intersection of technology and creativity, shaping my approach to digital innovation.
Over that time, I hired a few people, but never more than one at a time to help me with code, database, or server administration. I outsourced a lot of development work, which helped me develop the ability to manage remote teams. My early experiences in leading distributed teams laid the groundwork for my future endeavors, emphasizing the importance of communication and collaboration in remote settings.
As I was reflecting on the future, getting close to my 40th birthday, two long-term goals started shaping up. I was eager to work with a much larger team to experience the dynamics of a larger organization. The second goal was to work on something that would have a broad positive impact on society. I had to admit that the first 15 years of my career, as interesting and exciting as they had been, were mostly focused on my learning experience and making a living.
Here’s the frustrating part: I started talking to all my close friends, and they all agreed on one specific idea: I had not built the kind of thick skin that one needs to thrive in the corporate world, and 40 years old was too late for that. 15 years of moving fast in flat structures, with full agency over product choices and a few brilliant partners aligned on the same idea of moving fast and leaving ego at the door, had spoiled me for office politics. (It’s important to understand here that all my friends agreeing on something is a rare event that warrants special consideration).
In 2009, after a short period spent learning poker online, and after many hours of related conversation with my friend Anne, we decided to start a blog together. The French blogging landscape was mostly occupied by fashion blogs targeting women and tech blogs targeting men, and we felt that this situation needed to be addressed. ChicAndGeek.com was born from the wish to offer a common destination to everyone, and to show that one didn’t have to choose between good taste and modernity.
We found a designer to help us launch with a professional look. There was a blog at the time I really found beautiful, Matt Mullenweg’s blog at ma.tt (which is also the best domain name ever), so I contacted the designer who made the theme used there, Joolz, and asked him if he’d work for us. Our collaboration with Joolz was more than just about design; it was about creating an identity that resonated with our vision for Chic & Geek. It was a great collaboration through which we became friends. Joolz has moved on from the digital world these days and is an outstanding tattoo artist.
But I digress… C&G launched on September 1st, 2009, and we quickly found our stride and a not too shabby audience of about a thousand daily readers. Exploring formats, and under Anne’s impetus, we started interviewing personalities. We based our interviews on 64 personal, even intimate, questions, adapted but highly inspired by the Proust Questionnaire. These interviews were not just about capturing insights from our guests; they were a journey of discovery for us as well.
Interviews were mostly Anne’s territory until the crucial one that changed my life. As the summer 2010 was warming the Northern Hemisphere, we started thinking about C&G’s upcoming first anniversary and how we could have celebrated it in style. That’s when it hit me: Our blog was running on WordPress. Matt was the epitome of geek, as the co-founder and leader of what was already one of the largest open-source projects. From a few interviews, his blog, and our common designer, I had gathered he was also a man of great taste, definitely chic.
I had no idea about why he would accept our interview request, but something I had learned from my business partner, mentor, and friend over the first part of my career was that when we don’t ask for something we want, we guarantee ourselves the worst possible outcome we could face if asking: a refusal.
So, I asked.
To my delight, not only did Matt reply to my request, he also answered all 64 questions very candidly, and did all that so fast that I had time to do my research and write a blog post by the anniversary date.
That’s when I learned about Automattic. I felt immediately attracted, here was a company that was checking all the boxes:
- It’s large (well, it was large by my standards of the time, with more than 50 employees. Now we are close to 2,000).
- It’s building products that have a strong impact on many lives around the world by allowing anyone to publish online for free.
- It shares the same values of open and transparent communication, as well as speed of movement, that I had learned to appreciate over the first part of my career.
- It’s fully distributed, no one has to go to the office, and allows for great flexibility, being focused on impact, the outcomes your work generates, and not input, the time you spend working.
The obvious next step was to try to join the company. It took me a moment to apply, while I said earlier that I know that not asking gives you the worst possible outcome, this was balanced for a couple of months by the fact that until you ask, you can keep hope, after that rien ne va plus, les jeux sont faits…
I started a trial on January 3rd, 2011, and was hired on February 21st, just about 13 years ago. Destiny sent me another sign, as on my first day as a full-time Automattician I flew to Vienna for the first of a long series of meetups. Vienna, where I’d move with my family about 18 months later and have lived happily since. This is yet another possibility that Automattic offers: live where you want.
I have had several roles within Automattic over the past 13 years, I fully satisfied my original wishes, as I helped grow the company from 73 to almost 2,000 people and participated in something much bigger than a commercial product.
I also contributed to the WordPress community, launching WordPress meetups in Geneva and Vienna, launching, leading, and handing over to the community WordCamp Vienna, and finally participating, then leading, the organization of WordCamp Europe for five years from 2013 to 2017, which gave me the opportunity to meet many great members of the WordPress community, and to speak on stage at WordCamps.
It’s undisputable that my life has been forever changed by this one blog post published for C&G’s first anniversary, but more importantly, it has been changed by Matt’s work. Coincidentally, Matt is turning 40 today, the age I was when we first met.
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