We’re excited to announce that Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the popular blogging platform WordPress, will be taking the Disrupt stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024.
When Mullenweg first started working on WordPress, he was a 19-year-old jazz enthusiast and photographer in Texas who noticed the blogging software that he used had been stagnating — so he decided to build his own open source platform, forked from an existing project.
The first version of WordPress was launched in May 2003. From those modest beginnings, it has expanded to become a nearly ubiquitous content management system powering many of the web’s best-known publishers, including TechCrunch. By some counts, it’s used by more than 40% of websites.
Mullenweg also serves as CEO of Automattic, which offers hosting and other commercial services on top of WordPress and was valued at $7.5 billion in 2021. Among other things, Automattic operates the spam filtering Akismet, the e-commerce plugin WooCommerce, and the blogging platform Tumblr (acquired from Verizon). And if that wasn’t enough, Mullenweg also invests in startups through Audrey Capital.
As WordPress and Automattic have grown, and as Mullenweg has become one of the leading voices in open source software, they’ve also faced their share of controversies. For example, they’ve struggled to turn Tumblr into a sustainable business, and in recent months they’ve been locked in a legal battle with another WordPress hosting company, WP Engine.
So there will be plenty to discuss with Mullenweg on the Disrupt Stage at Disrupt 2024 — about his founder journey, his challenges, and what’s next for WordPress and the web — when he joins us next week. It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss!
Secure your ticket now to take advantage of low ticket rates. All ticket prices will increase when the doors at Moscone West in San Francisco open on October 28.
