Learn All There Is To Know From WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg

• April 2, 2015
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While WordPress is the most commonly used CMS, it is most highly used by a demographic which does not associate as “techie.” In other words, “As long as I can write on it and as long as it works the way it needs to work, I’m all set.”

Most users go about their daily use without consideration of the platform, its inception and creators. Enter Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, who began its development at age 19.

Tech site Mashable was able to hunt Mullenweg down for an interview on WordPress, which proved very informative and a great introduction to the CMS for beginners.

Here are a few of our favorite quotes.

On how WordPress has changed the world:

Two things WordPress has been able to exemplify is that Open Source can create great user experiences and that it’s possible to have a successful commercial entity and a wider free software community living and working in harmony.

When an Open Source venture meets a capitalistic world:

The biggest challenge for Open Source is that as it enters the consumer market, as projects like WordPress and Firefox have done, you have to create a user experience that is on par or better than the proprietary alternatives. Traditional Open Source development models, like the Apache one, are not set up to do that. In server software options are good — in consumer web interfaces they’re a cognitive burden.

While I personally believe strongly in the philosophy and ideology of the Free Software movement, you can’t win people over just on philosophy; you have to have a better product too.

On the power of mobile:

From the first time I held an iPhone, the space has evolved quickly, and people have shifted from reading content on their desktops to smartphones and iPads, even long-form stuff. Twitter is the ultimate service for the mobile age — its simplification and constraint of the publishing medium to 140 characters is perfectly complementary to a mobile experience. People still need longer stuff, but they see the headline on Twitter or Facebook.

Mullenweg also openly discusses the fact that WordPress had integrated popular features from platforms such as Tumblr after the fact, unafraid to admit that when a feature works, it should be adopted – whether you were the original creator or not.