{"id":20867,"date":"2013-05-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global2020prd.wpengine.com\/insights\/matt-mullenweg-insights-into-a-networked-organization\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:06:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:06:48","slug":"matt-mullenweg-insights-into-a-networked-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/matt-mullenweg-insights-into-a-networked-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Mullenweg: insights into a networked organization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The blogging platform<a title=\"Wordpress\" href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WordPress<\/a> is ten years old today! I was lucky to see co-founder\u00a0Matt Mullenweg at the Activate conference last year:<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QQ243UtfyaI?rel=0\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p>This was interesting from our perspective at Global Integration, because the organization he describes is an extreme version of the matrix &#8211; \u00a0a truly networked organization.<\/p>\n<p>One year ago, WordPress.com had 341 million monthly users. Yet it boasted at the time just 120 staff. The organization has no real headquarters, but aims to employ the best people around the World \u2013 25 countries, 90 cities or thereabouts. It doesn\u2019t matter who they are in terms of gender, colour etc \u2013 even interviews happen by text chat. All that matters is the individual&#8217;s results. Even the leadership team is distributed &#8211; founder Mike Little was based in the UK, Mullenweg in the USA.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>How can just 120 people manage such a large organization? Mullenweg describes a very open, distributed, meritocracy, based on people doing the things that really matter. \u00a0The WordPress eco-system works in part because others have taken the core and added plugins and designs to enhance the site &#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/working-with-external-partners\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">people who have a relationship with but don&#8217;t work for WordPress<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His view of meetings concurs with ours: <a title=\"meetings\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/blog\/podcast-episode-2-dismal-meetings-surprisingly-useful-coffee-breaks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">too many are unnecessary<\/a> \u2013 so they just don\u2019t have scheduled meetings, meeting remotely when they need to. They communicate via internal communications tools, and people comment on and check work online. They love Google hangouts, and are happy with bi-weekly\/occasional discussions between groups. Code updates, consequently, are shipped to the site around 60 times a day. That\u2019s a fantastic level of productivity.<\/p>\n<p>Teams have<a title=\"influence\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/matrix-management\/matrix-teams\/matrix-teams-video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> leads who co-ordinate rather than formal managers<\/a>. Mullenweg finds it easier to communicate direction using blog posts containing screen shots or videos, which all of the team can read, or to simply liaise with team leaders and <a title=\"trust\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/newsletters\/trust-control-newsletter-global-integration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">trust them to communicate<\/a> information through.<\/p>\n<p>Getting to know each other on teams because it\u2019s missing when you don\u2019t work together \u2013 he notes that it\u2019s important to know what the person communicating is like. Teams can, however, meet wherever in the World they want to when they need to, and the costs of this are offset against the savings on office space.<\/p>\n<p>Mullenweg claims WordPress can select staff on the basis of skill. His talent pool has expanded, and he describes excluding anyone from working with you on the basis of location as both \u201cmorally odious\u201d and \u201cstatistically dumb\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an interesting case study, and as a very 21st century company, we defy anyone to suggest that matrix working, and virtual working, are dead.\u00a0Mullenweg describes this way of remote working as the future of work. We couldn&#8217;t agree more!<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"title title--h4 title--purple\">Why not&#8230;..?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Find out more about working in and <a title=\"Virtual teams\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/training-for-virtual-teams\/\">leading virtual teams<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Find out about <a title=\"Activate 2013\" href=\"https:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/media\/activate-conference\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this year&#8217;s Activate conference<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Kevan Hall books\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/resources\/shop\/\">Read more<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The blogging platform WordPress is ten years old today! I was lucky to see co-founder\u00a0Matt Mullenweg at the Activate conference [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","type-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.6 (Yoast SEO v27.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Matt Mullenweg: insights into a networked organization - Global Integration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The blogging platform Wordpress is ten years old today! 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