Interview with Automattic's Matt Mullenweg on working from his always-connected RV, making “the Berkshire Hathaway of the internet”, and betting on open systems
@photomatt, quoting Camus https://www.protocol.com/... While others go searching for “the decentralized web”, we'll be over here w/ DNS, HTML, & open source. David Pierce / @pierce : Over the last few months I spent a lot of time with @photomatt and the people around him, trying to understand the better internet he imagines and what it takes to build it. Here's the story I came back with: https://www.protocol.com/... @protocol : “To truly be a platform, it has to be open. Otherwise it's more like a trap.” https://www.protocol.com/... Karyne Levy / @karynelevy : If you read one thing today, read this awesome profile of Matt Mullenwege: one of the most important voices in the fight over the future of the internet. https://www.protocol.com/... Jeff Gothelf / @jboogie : 43% of the internet runs on Wordpress! https://twitter.com/... @automattic : “As more and more of our lives start to be run and dictated by the technology we use, it's a human right to be able to see how that technology works and modify it.” — Automattic CEO @photomatt. Read more at @protocol's latest feature. https://protocol.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Four months after the $288M primary round and internal liquidity market gave Automattic a valuation to defend, David Pierce's Protocol profile frames what that money is for: Mullenweg explicitly models the company on Berkshire Hathaway — a holding structure that buys and runs web properties rather than chasing a single product cycle — while working from an always-connected RV as proof of the distributed model he preaches.
The open-systems argument in the piece ('to truly be a platform, it has to be open') sets up everything that follows: the Tumblr acquisition he defends in the 2022 Q&A on closing the deal, and the 2024 moment when DHH publicly accused him of 'doing open source dirty' — the same claim he rebutted by pointing at Rails' own trademark policy.
First-order effects
- Mullenweg gains a public thesis statement — Berkshire-style acquisitions plus DNS/HTML/open-source foundations — that turns future deals like Tumblr into evidence of strategy rather than one-offs, with WordPress's reported 43% share of the web as the balance-sheet anchor.
- Automattic's fully distributed workforce gets its most visible endorsement yet: the CEO running the company day-to-day from an RV normalizes remote-first as operating model, not pandemic workaround.
Second-order effects
- Rival platform companies now face an acquirer whose pitch to targets is openness — 'otherwise it's more like a trap' — pressuring closed incumbents (Apple's App Store rules, which Mullenweg critiques repeatedly in later interviews) to answer the openness argument on pricing and control.
- The open-source community becomes a battleground over Automattic's stewardship: when DHH attacks its practices in 2024, the credibility built by this profile is exactly what Mullenweg spends defending WordPress's trademark and governance choices.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, web infrastructure consolidates into founder-led holding companies where open protocols are both the moat and the marketing — with the recurring tension that whoever stewards an open standard also controls its economics.
- By the 2025 Q&A on AI licensing deals, the same 'open systems beat the decentralized-web search' logic extends to content licensing: owners of large open corpora become counterparties to AI firms, a position only credible because the open bet compounded first.
The trend: The web's core publishing infrastructure is consolidating under founder-controlled holding companies that treat open protocols and open source simultaneously as product philosophy and competitive moat.