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Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

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Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#111
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could stop having Wix ads on youtube, I have seen it like 500 times already. While Squarespace is on all the information channel as sponsors. I have yet to see a single ads on Wordpress. Not necessarily a bad thing, but now whenever I think of doing a simple website my brains clicks on Wix or SqaureSpace instead of thinking about Wordpress.com

Youtube premium removes video ads. Plus you can skip the product placement ads if you want.

(only if you live in countries where youtube premium is offered)

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#112
post #38
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

au contraire, i bet wordpress users make a lot more revenue than SV combined (not a high bar - most SV startups lose money)

Right, but they probably get close to zero from the self-hosted WordPress users. The revenue is from people paying WordPress.com to host their sites. That's the number of users that's relevant, and it's a much smaller number. The self-hosted users that are the majority don't count for much.

On the self-hosted side they probably make a reasonable amount on premium licensing for WooCommerce addons in the WooCommerce marketplace as well as JetPack & Akismet.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#114
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love for that percentage to go up, and we are hiring! High velocity and high scale backend work, tons of React with Calypso and Gutenberg, the most leveraged systems group I've ever seen, a really lovely-to-work-in native apps team, and of course everything coming in with Tumblr.

Why are you still pushing Gutenberg though? The reviews continue to be negative: https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/#reviews

Have you tried using gutenberg? i love it.

granted, i'm not trying to make a business selling wordpress templates, or trying to use wordpress in some way other than just as a blog. but a lot of the gutenberg criticism seems to be of the "i hate this because it's new" variety.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#115

> “The roadmap is the same. I just think we might be able to do it in five years instead of ten,” Mullenweg said. I tried to hunt for why the investment was taken and this is all the article mentions. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m guessing that competition is heating up and they need marketing fuel to keep people on the platform while they transform it from a duct taped blogging tool to something more flexibl…

I've been playing with WebFlow a lot lately after using WP for years. I'm not a designer but the sheer amount of control that I can have directly on WP is really incredible. I know there are a million visual designer plugins/themes for WP - but I've tried them all and WebFlow makes them look like kid's toys. There's some limitations with WebFlow, but I'm making it my 1a option going forward.

How does oxygen compares with webflow?

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#116

The keyword in the post is "e-commerce"

“e-commerce” does not directly come to my mind when I hear WP. Different story with Salesforce. So the question is - how does it fit together?

Salesforce bought Demandware, which was built on Intershop, and while a dominant force in ecommerce, it's also a stagnant one, sorely lacking on the content front. There have been several attempts to fix this, and none are keeping up with modern alternatives.

The admin for Demandware hasn't changed in years. Woo is nowhere near where SFCC is in terms of functionality, but with this kind of investment, the folks involved on the Automattic side are likely far more personally invested in building out an ecommerce platform around WP, certainly compared to anyone who's hired on to go spelunking in the Demandware codebase.

Look for a hosted, enterprisey take on WooCommerce in a couple of years.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outright saying that you attract a demographic that you DO NOT WANT TO HIRE FROM is a whole different level of problem. That's not what was said. Nothing in that quote implies "we will hire zero men".

She literally said she gets applications from a demographic that she doesn't want to hire from.... am I missing something here? You can't just say I have too many Asians and therefore would prefer to have my applicants not be Asian.

If she literally says that, please quote it.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#118
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux powers most of the web servers on the internet. The Linux Foundation is not worth billions of dollars. All of those servers run on Intel chips. Maybe some AMD. Even combined, companies like Google and Amazon, who would be nothing without those chips, are worth more than the companies that make their chips. And electricity! Our electric companies aren't worth a penny compared to these huge tech companies. That's…

The Linux Foundation is not worth billions of dollars IBM paid billions of dollars for Red Hat.

And most of the webservers on the Internet does not run Redhat.

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She literally said she gets applications from a demographic that she doesn't want to hire from.... am I missing something here? You can't just say I have too many Asians and therefore would prefer to have my applicants not be Asian.

If she literally says that, please quote it.

"we realized that the demographics of people we attract to apply are not inline with the demographics of the people we hope to hire."

I already quoted....

Re: Automattic raises $300M at $3B valuation from Salesforce Ventures

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she literally says that, please quote it.

"we realized that the demographics of people we attract to apply are not inline with the demographics of the people we hope to hire." I already quoted....

I'm assuming "the demographics of the people we hope to hire" means demographics that match the population at large. They should have been more clear about what that meant.

Nevertheless, if the demographic profile of their hires doesn't correspond to the demographics of the population they're embedded in, it's reasonable to question whether 1) they're unfairly excluding people and 2) the extent to which the people they're excluding could have contributed.

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