Hosting & WordPress & Complicated Relationship

WordPress hosting complicated relationship. Discover why choosing the right host matters and how to fix common WordPress hosting issues today.

With Special Guest David Snead, Director, Co-Founder of Secure Hosting Alliance; i2Coalition | Internet Infrastructure Coalition

This Week’s Sponsors

Kinta: Kinta

LifterLMS: LifterLMS

Rollback Pro: Rollback Pro

The Show’s Main Transcript

[00:00:20.820] – Jonathan Denwood

Welcome back, folks, to the WP Tonic Show. This is a bit of a special show. We’ve got a fabulous guest with us as well. This is the The 1,000th show of the WP Tonic Show. That didn’t exactly rhyme, but that’s the truth. I made it to the 1,000th show. We also have a fabulous guest with us. We got David Sneed, Director and co-founder of the SACRE Hosting Alliance, I2 Coalition. We’re going to be talking about all things hosting, WordPress, AI, and the trends in hosting. David’s got an enormous amount of knowledge in this area, about the major hosting companies and how they view WordPress. It should be a fab show. So David, can you give us a quick 10- 15 second intro? And then when we go back into the main part of the show, we delve into your background in a little bit more detail.

[00:01:26.860] – David Snead

Sure. So I’m the director of the Secure Hosting Alliance, and it’s a working group of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition or I2 Coalition, that I co-founded about 13, 14 years ago with Christian Dawson. The i2 Coalition is a Trade Association for Internet Infrastructure Providers. That’s folks like hosting companies, cloud providers, VPN providers, domain registries and registrars, folks like that.

[00:01:58.040] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s fabulous. I’ve got my great co-host, Kurt, with me. Kurt, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?

[00:02:05.760] – Kurt von Ahnen

I feel a lot less excited now, David. I just run an agency. I run Mañana No Mas and work directly with the great folks over at WP Tonic.

[00:02:15.260] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s fantastic. As I said, it should be a great discussion. But before we go into the meat and potatoes, I’ve got a message from one of our FAB major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks.

[00:02:27.040] – Kurt von Ahnen

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[00:03:00.200] – Jonathan Denwood

We’re coming back, folks. I also want to point out that we’ve got some great special deals from the show’s sponsors. Plus, we got a created list of the best WordPress plugins that WP Tonic uses and gives the thumbs up to. Plus, a load of other free resources for freelancers or small agency owners. Where can you go to get these special deals and all the other free resources? Go over to wp-tonic. Com Wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. Also, tell the sponsors that you appreciate their support for the show, because that is fantastic. That’s how I can keep the show going. So let’s go into it, David. So can you give us some… I know that, based on your LinkedIn profile and the website, your background is in law. How did you get exactly into the world of hosting an IT cloud infrastructure?

[00:04:08.560] – David Snead

Yeah, I say this all the time. I can’t believe I have been doing this as long as I have. So I started working in hosting because went in-house and worked for a telecommunications company that had a very cool internet company as a subsidiary. And it was a hosting company. And at that time, during the dot-com bubble, I thought that was the coolest thing. That was the best thing I could do, next to getting an in-house job at AOL or something like that, which was super cool at the time. That’s how I started. I’ve been working in hosting since 1999, which is quite a long time for any one industry. The thing I really love about the hosting industry is that it’s always reinventing itself. There are these continual waves of consolidation and then rebirth. I always say that every time one of my clients gets consolidated into a larger host, I get a call from two guys in a server in their grandma’s basement. It’s just the most interesting thing. I worked in private practice for about 14 years after I went in-house. Then, most recently, I was general counsel for Webpros.

[00:05:52.180] – David Snead

Webpros is a large company in the internet infrastructure space that’s best for making cPanel and Plesk, the two largest control panels in the industry. I let them start the Secure Hosting Alliance. The Secure Hosting Alliance is a working group of the IT coalition that does two things. One, it serves as a community for the hosting industry, and the second is we have a trust seal for ethical hosts.

[00:06:28.940] – Jonathan Denwood

All right. That’s fantastic. Fantastic. Over to you, Kurt.

[00:06:32.500] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, I just chuckled because in David’s answer, he said everything’s constantly changing, and I think the last couple of years have just been crazy, especially in the hosting space. Obviously, we think about AI and the different things people are trying to do with their hosting and packages, but what do you think are some of the biggest trends you’re seeing in hosting, David?

[00:06:56.200] – David Snead

Things have actually changed since I initially thought of that question. Right now, I think I see about maybe four or five different things. The first is something that is always constant in the hosting industry: continued price pressure. I also see some issues with customer acquisition and the changes in how hosts can acquire customers. Like everyone else who goes on a podcast, I see AI as an issue. Right now, there are also some very, very aggressive consolidators out there, mostly in Europe, who are buying or investing in small- to medium-sized hosts. And then I see more now than ever, the fifth thing is issues related to regulation and regulatory pressures. That’s what I see from both the members of the Sker Hosting Alliance and my friends I talk to on a daily basis.

[00:08:15.580] – Kurt von Ahnen

If I could just push a little bit on that answer. You mentioned that constant pressure on pricing was one of the first things you said. I’m really in two minds here because I know people love that whole “Host your site for $2.” 95 a month. You could host your website for $2. 95 a month. But then there’s realistic hosting. If you’re going to have a dynamic property somewhere, you’re probably looking at $35, $ 55, $ 60, or $80 a month, depending on what maintenance or whatever comes with that package. But there’s another part of me that says, if everybody on the planet is all this extra AI stuff and this extra bandwidth and all this stuff seems to be happening, is that going to drive the pricing of hosting for the average person up? On the one hand, we think everything’s driving down, but on the other hand, is the nature of what we’re doing forcing prices to increase?

[00:09:20.060] – David Snead

The reason that I chuckled with your initial comment is, that is, the pricing is something that I’ve been talking about forever. At least there’s been some inflation because I used to say 99 cents. But that’s honestly something the Secure Hosting Alliance talks about a lot: how we can level up professionalism in the hosting industry, because someone who’s providing 2.99 basic hosting isn’t providing you with a professional host. So I really see, honestly, my comment about price pressure is mostly about licensing costs. So I see licensing costs continuing to rise as there are parts of hosting that are fundamental, and they’re the building blocks of folks’ websites that are, in some respects, locked into the ecosystem. And so there’s a real opportunity for the folks who run those companies to increase their revenue by increasing licensing. I also agree with your second point that as customers want more items in their hosting packages, this will increase their initial costs. The one thing that I think drives customers away from that particular concern of yours is, I really wonder sometimes what the universe of true customers who need a robust website like that really is.

[00:11:31.340] – David Snead

One of the things that concerns me a lot, particularly for folks who are starting out their hosting business, is a restaurant who’s trying to attract customers, do they need a website or do they just need a Facebook presence?

[00:11:53.000] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, we hear that a lot. To me, I always look at it like, I need that social presence anyway, but that’s like the net. Then if I do things correctly, I direct the net towards the boat and bringing the fish into the boat, and the boat’s the website. I always want to own a property and then use those social tools to bring in that traffic if I can. But to your point, a lot of local businesses, restaurants, coffee shops, tap rooms, they could have a website that gets next to zero traffic because the energy of the community might be on a different social channel.

[00:12:35.580] – David Snead

When I talk about customer acquisition challenges, I think that that’s one of them.

[00:12:43.740] – Kurt von Ahnen

I’m sorry, Jonathan, but I still have a follow-up question. You mentioned something that always intrigues me, and that’s in the professional space, especially we do the show every week. So we’re always talking about these high-end things, right? Membership sites and eLearning sites and all these things. But To your point, in the grand scheme, most websites are very, very simple, right? And so when we hear WordPress has 43% of the Internet, I think part of us needs to take stock of that and go, well, there’s a lot of abandoned blogs out there, and there’s a lot of things that are still taking up those addresses.

[00:13:19.180] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, it really depends on what city you’re talking about, doesn’t it? If you’re talking about the small town, small city, a lot of service trade type customers’ websites, I would say that website is still pretty important because of Google, because if somebody… If you’re just relying on recommendations from your local community and you’re happy with that level of work, a website is not going to be very important to you. But if you want to expand your business, appear when somebody does If you’re on a local search on their phone, on a mobile device, you want to be there. And one of the clearest draws that Google takes is Have you filled in your Google local business profile? Have you got a decent website? Are you giving indications that you’re a real business in that area? Do you have a There’s loads of factors, but then you go on to the bigger scale. So I don’t know if David agrees with this. It’s very diverse, isn’t it, David?

[00:14:42.640] – David Snead

Yeah. So you are Just by happenstance, you happened to talk about an issue that is one of my soapbox issues in the community where I live. It has nothing to do with my my profession or why I’m on here, but it is local businesses need a website. I can’t tell you the number of times in my community that I try and find a business. I find a recommendation for a business that I want to patronize, and I go to whatever they consider to be their website, and the hours are wrong. 90% of the time, there’s not even an address.

[00:15:36.640] – Jonathan Denwood

I want to know the hours they’re open and their damn physical address. The amount of You know, the websites you go to, and you notice this when you’re traveling, and when they do have a website, they don’t have the hours on the homepage, and they don’t have the physical address on the homepage, do they, David?

[00:16:00.800] – David Snead

Yeah, exactly. I live in a tourist town, and that’s so necessary. This question, after I get off this podcast, I’m going to have to go take a blood pressure pill because this has just increased my… It’s something that I am just very, very passionate about. But the other thing that we’ve been talking about is something that has always been interesting to me when I talk to web hosting companies, and I call it the golden unicorn theory of hosting. And it’s that you’re going to start out with two servers in your grandma’s basement, hosting restaurants and dry cleaners and folks like that. And somehow, these local businesses are going to grow into larger entities that are going to need more robust hosting. I have yet to see that work out. What I do see work out for a host is they start with that, and then they move more to the enterprise level, and their services attract the larger customers who are already there. I think it’s rare that you start off with a restaurant as a customer, and all of a sudden it becomes a giant franchisor that needs a diverse hosting.

[00:17:33.580] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, so let’s move the conversation on a little bit. Basically, in the agency, in the WordPress space, there’s been You have some very large players like GoDaddy, Bluehost. And then over the last 10 years, you’ve had new players not using cPanel, doing what they call manage hosting. You’ve had people like WP Engine. James is, I wouldn’t say he’s a close friend, but he would take my phone call, the founder of WP Engine. You’ve had people like Kinster who sponsors this podcast. You’ve had a number. You’ve got the hosting providers that automatic are behind. And then you got more traditional hosting. So what exactly hosting is, I don’t even know what the word manage hosting means anymore. At WP Tonic, we’ve got a very learned through a card experience what is managed hosting. But now you’ve got AI added to this, which is Brew, as I see it. I know one of the areas that all hosting providers are looking is the cost of onboarding on the cost of actually getting a customer and then the cost of churn, finding that customer really aspirations or what they thought they were going to get for a certain price point.

[00:19:25.820] – Jonathan Denwood

They’re looking at AI to have a more custom onboarding experience. Do you think I’m on the right track that a lot of these hosting providers, they’re looking at AI to have a more customer onboarding onboarding experience. Do you think I’m on the right track that a lot of these hosting providers, they are looking at AI to have a more custom experience and also reduce the tremendous churn rate that they have as well.

[00:19:48.130] – David Snead

So I agree with your first point. I’m not sure that your second point about reducing churn is is going to necessarily be based on AI. I’m not quite understanding how AI is going to reduce churn. I do see AI impacting quite a bit of support and support issues, although I think that support is already pretty automated already. It’s just going to change how that works. But that also provides an opportunity for small hosts, because small hosts particularly win on support. I don’t think that AI is going to change that. It’s going to change how they provide support, but they win on support. It will change things as hosts try to grow and their margin pressures, but I don’t think that that’s very new.

[00:21:00.000] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I think with the churn question, I don’t know if Kirk agrees with this, you can have somebody looking to have a membership website or a community website, or they might be looking to set up e-commerce. They’re going to need… If you go to any large hosting provider, the amount of different offers they’ve got, I’m not going to point the finger in any particular, but I think this affects all the major hosting providers, the amount of different plans and different levels. If you’re somebody, you probably would say, Well, the customer then needs to ring up, but a lot of them don’t even have a phone number or any way to directly communicate with them. I think it’s becoming more and more confusing, and that’s why I think they’re probably looking at AI to guide the customer to the right package. Is that make sense, David?

[00:22:05.960] – David Snead

Sure. That makes more sense. I think that that might be an interesting use of AI as a way of, I guess, decluttering the offerings that hosting providers provide.

[00:22:27.980] – Jonathan Denwood

Wp tonic, we’re a We hybrid a host agency, manage hosting. We do a personalized onboarding. On the website, it says, Membership Community. We’re very focused on a particular… And Kerk helps me with this and some of the other part members of the team. But even with a white glove meeting, we do our best, don’t we, Kirk and our team? But a lot of time, we still have to have a second meeting to really find out what they’re really looking for. Isn’t that right, Kurt?

[00:23:04.920] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah. Well, a lot of people get started and they have ideas in their head, but they haven’t put them on a bullet list for themselves yet. So, yeah, a lot of times we build something and then they go, Oh, I thought it was going to this, or I thought it was going to that, or now I realize I want this other thing. So yeah, we usually end up onboarding them a couple of times.

[00:23:23.940] – David Snead

So this discussion makes me think of a question for the two of One of the issues that I’ve seen hosts have in the past is the transition from small to medium size. I wonder, do you think that the AI that you’re talking about is going to help them make the transition from, I’m helping you personally design your website, to something else going to get you to that bullet point phase so that we can more effectively rationalize our costs?

[00:24:10.460] – Jonathan Denwood

Can I answer that first, Kerr?

[00:24:12.340] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah, you have had it.

[00:24:14.280] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, before we I’m going to go for our break, I’m going to let Kerr also answer this because I’d be interested if he has the same view. It’s a very interesting question, David, but it’s a yes or no, really. In some ways, you can see AI AI helping, but it’s also hindering because I use a lot of AI. I think AI will have a growing influence on tech. But on the other hand, the way it is presented at the present moment, especially in the development of websites, is truly horrendous, David, because we provide a number of customized starter websites. A lot of hosting providers do. There’s a number of the big providers that are offering, and there’s a number of the WordPress page builders. We offer one of the leading ones where you can put in a description of your website and it will build it for you. And they do, the one we use, and a couple of the others in the WordPress space, do a reasonably good job, David. But they do a good job of getting you started, getting you… But that’s just the start. To get a website that actually achieves anything, achieves any business goals or achieves anything of needing sweat equity to be put in it has become more and more difficult.

[00:25:58.770] – Jonathan Denwood

So you got these contradictory messages that you can just knock up a website and it’s going to be really easy. And the demand’s what Google’s looking for, the demand of Open AI or perpetuary of the large language learning models, when they look at a website, what they’re looking for, it’s become absolutely bonkers in a way. But then you got this story, oh, you can just a website in half an hour. So the two story lines just do not match up. They’re totally contradictory, and they’re moving away from one another. They’re not moving into one another. I think the prioritization is actually increasing. What do you reckon, Kurt?

[00:26:53.700] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, there’s your perspective, and then there’s the question that David, I think, was asking from the From the hosting point of view, with service for people trying to recognize going from a small package to a medium package, you were talking about the people like startups. I think those AI startup template things are fantastic because most people, and I hate that I sound like I’m talking down to folks. I’m not, but most people have an idea for their business or whatever, but they’re not webmasters, they’re not professionals, and they don’t really understand from scratch how to visualize, have a vision for an effective website. So having a template at the ready that injects content that’s suitable for them for a first draft, that That’s pure genius. That works really well. Where I’m thinking of David’s thing about going from a smaller enterprise to a mid-size enterprise. I think about the experience I had with Cloudways when I was using that It had that, you could drag the bubble across. Here’s my small package I started out on, my website slowing down. I’ll just bump up one or I’ll bump up two. And I think in that regard, from the hosting perspective, to deal with these customers, most customers have no idea what’s involved in hosting.

[00:28:21.040] – Kurt von Ahnen

When we have conversations with them about PHP workers or RAM or these, they don’t know. And a lot of times they’re used to shopping for a laptop. And so they go, Oh, well, eight gig, that’s not very much. And so they have these thoughts, and the thoughts are generally not correct. So I think in that situation, I could see how an AI tool would greatly reduce churn for people Because it would say, let’s take a look at your current website’s bandwidth. Let’s take a look at how many pages and assets and plugins you have. Okay, we recommend you have this if you’re seeking a page speed score of this. Ai should be able to say to do the math, right? So to the customer that doesn’t know anything about hosting, AI should be able to do the math for them that says, here’s your existing website, here’s your bandwidth that you’re using, here’s your current page speed score. If this is your goal, this is what you need. And that would be really cool.

[00:29:15.440] – David Snead

That would be really cool.

[00:29:17.300] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I can see that. I can see a lot of the hosting providers, because like I said before, and I don’t think I’m wrong, is that if you go to a lot of the leading hosting providers, the amount of different offerings they’ve got is mind numbing, and the different choices you’ve got. They do the best they can. If you go to WP engine or you go to Kintster or you go to any of the major reputable hosting providers, the amount of choices. Obviously, they are, to some extent, aimed at the agency, the freelancer agency owner. But they also got a lot of owners, the Why people go into those websites as well. Right, I think that’s a good place for us to have our middle break. When we come back, we’re going to have some more discussions about hosting. Hosting is always a popular subject in the WordPress professional space. Page builders and hosting, they’re the things that get people blood pressure moving, David. So we’re going to have our break and we will be back in a few moments, folks.

[00:30:29.380] – Kurt von Ahnen

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[00:31:06.800] – David Snead

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[00:31:44.400] – Jonathan Denwood

We’re Coming back, we’ve had a fantastic discussion with David about hosting. Before we go into the second half of the show, if you’re looking for a great hosting partner and a lot more, your tech partner as as well, and you’ve got a large membership community-focused project, why don’t you look at Hosting with WP Tonic? We got some of the best affiliate packages in the industry, but we also are your tech partner, not only your hosting partner, we can become your tech partner. So if that’s something interesting, why don’t you go over to WP Tonic, wp-tonic. Com/partner. Partners, wp-tonic. Com/partners. Let’s build something special together. So on we go. So I went on the run at the end of the first half, but it’s my thousandth show. But how do you see AI affecting the hosting industry in the next 12 months, 18 months at the most, David? What are your own thoughts?

[00:33:03.360] – David Snead

So as I said before the break, I think that it’s going to change the way that support is provided. So it’s going to change things from support as hosts try to grow and there’s margin pressure. But for smaller hosts, AI. I often wonder, if you are including AI for support, are you going to be able to implement AI for support better than, say, GoDaddy or Wix or Squarespace? You’re probably not. But I really liked the point that Kirek made about about how AI might be used as a way of helping educate customers about what they actually need. This podcast, you’ve triggered two of my soapbox issues. The second one is that everybody thinks their own job involves a lot of specialized knowledge, and that everybody else’s job is just common sense, right? And I think folks approach hosting that way as well, right? Like, I’ve gone to a website, therefore I know how to run a website. And it’s super complicated. As somebody who has to explain to regulators how the Internet works, talking to them about hosting, they always say to me, I just thought it was deciding what colors to make the website and putting in an email responder.

[00:35:18.020] – David Snead

I really like this idea that you can say to somebody who just has a basic website, Okay, you’re starting to get a lot more traffic. You probably really need to do X, Y, and Z. And having that automated would be something that I think customers would really like.

[00:35:38.860] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah. Over to you, Kurt, for the next question.

[00:35:42.580] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah, it’s I guess it’s more like same but different. We’re still talking about hosting, but where do you… And we see this, obviously, because we primarily work with WordPress, but where do you see this relationship that hosts have with WordPress? Do you think they’re continuing to get more and more intertwined, or do you think they’re getting more segmented, or heaven forbid, you actually want to comment on what they actually might think about WordPress off the record, on the record?

[00:36:16.680] – David Snead

I think that this is on the record. But the good thing about that comment is I honestly don’t have any input or background in what hosts think of WordPress. I actually, I super enjoyed getting to know the WordPress community and working with Hostender and WordPress. It’s nothing but deeply intertwined, right? So what is it? Almost 50 % of websites run on WordPress. That’s an amazing number. There are some things that I find challenging. I find the plugin ecosystem fascinating. There’s just so much of that. So many plugins. It’s like going to the cheesecake factory and looking at a giant menu. And that is a little bit terrible for the customer experience, to the extent that customers have to look at that. And I think that hosts have moved Moved beyond just offering WordPress as a basic install, WordPress is essential to how most hosts run their business because it has to be an offering that they support. That’s my general WordPress comments.

[00:37:51.480] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, and at the risk of blending things together and really making a soup here, we had talked about AI, we mentioned WordPress, we talked about hosting, and security is in the name of your organization. Is all of this… Because we used to hear, Well, I can’t use… From an enterprise perspective, right? We don’t want to use WordPress. We need something more secure. Well, I think over the years, security has become less and less of an issue. I mean, I don’t think of security really being an issue with WordPress at all. But then if we’re injecting AI into a ton of things and we’ve got 70,000 plugins to play with, is that becoming a soup of a mess or Do you think that we’re still consistently stable?

[00:38:35.200] – David Snead

I think there’s stability. I’m not sure because I’m a lawyer, I’m not sure I would use the word consistent, consistently stable. I think that there’s some stability. I went to a really great talk at WordCamp Europe last year about a design agency that had created a full website for a bank based on WordPress. If a bank is using WordPress for their full website, I think there is a basis of security there.

[00:39:17.340] – Kurt von Ahnen

Yeah. It’s like when you hear NASA’s on it and stuff like that. You hear these big names, you go, Well, if they’re on it, it’s got to be okay. But so and so jumped off a bridge when I follow them? That becomes the next obvious question. So Cool. Jonathan, over to you.

[00:39:34.060] – Jonathan Denwood

You hinted, where do you think the hosting industry is at the present moment? You said that you’ve seen in Europe There’s bigger players buying smaller players. But do you think that some of the US players… When I’ve done my research, I was really quite amazed at how diverse the hosting industry still is. You got some major players like GoDaddy, but it’s still a very fragmented industry. But you seem to hint that margins are under a lot of pressure. What is the feedback you’re getting from the industry? Do you think there’s a lot of pressure on all types of providers? Or what’s your general feeling about the situation in the first half of 2026?

[00:40:35.280] – David Snead

Yeah, there is a lot of pressure. I think we’re in one of those way There’s a series of consolidation that are occurring now. The European hosting market was super fragmented. It’s now being consolidated up. I think the same is likely to be true of the US hosting market. You already saw some relatively large hosts like A2 get consolidated up. There are always going to be margin pressures. As I said earlier, the fee increases are going to continue. The licensing fee issues are going to continue, and so there needs to There’s going to be pressure from that perspective as well.

[00:41:34.180] – Jonathan Denwood

How do you see you got this whole area like DigitalOcean bought Cloudways, and you got another host of other providers that aren’t using… I’m using the word traditional hosting providers, but they’re providing a cloud-based So it’s not backbone, but it’s just making sense. They’re increasingly what I’m trying to think, what exactly is hosting? I think there’s a lot of people offering very different depending if they’re offering it to the freelancer, to the agency, or to the end user. There’s what precisely they are offering. Does that make any sense, David?

[00:42:28.040] – David Snead

Yeah. So it It makes a lot of sense. I think that that is one of the ways that, going back to my very early analogy, that the guys with two servers in their grandma’s basement can compete, right? Are you providing hosting to the restaurants down the street, or are you embracing… There’s this whole movement right now of sovereign hosting. Folks are starting again to want to have their data in their local jurisdiction. Is that going to be a way for you to differentiate yourself? Their folks have problems with the very large hyper scalers. Can you use that as a way of providing a differentiated product that is something other than adding a site builder to your product?

[00:43:30.300] – Jonathan Denwood

Yeah, I think you touched something on there that’s… Because I know a lot of companies is not that… Hosting is part of it, but the whole movement of putting everything on the cloud. It was supposed to reduce costs and that. But when they look at their Azure bill and they can’t make head or tail of it, you got these other cloud providers, don’t you? Hyper providers. So it’s a very interesting time, isn’t it? Over to you, Kirek. Over to you for the next question, Kirek.

[00:44:08.320] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, I think where we’d want to go now, David, is like In your space, and this is interesting for our listeners and viewers, who are some people that you look up to in the technology space that you can think of that are worth a follow, a subscribe to, or a share? Who are folks that we can look to for some extra information in the tech arena?

[00:44:38.320] – David Snead

That is a very loaded on the record question. David, who are your friends in the hosting industry?

[00:44:49.440] – Jonathan Denwood

We’re not asking for friends. We’re asking you, are there a couple of people that you think, observing them, that they have impressed with their effectiveness?

[00:45:02.980] – David Snead

I tend to look more from the hosting space at the folks who are working for the hosting companies. Things that I would look at if I were trying to find some new information that I couldn’t get from reading hosting blogs or hosting newsletter is look at the folks who provide human support and technical support. One of my foundational experiences when I was working at cPanel was sitting with a support tech for two days while he provided one-on-one support and seeing what they do, looking into support blogs, how support is provided. That’s going to be, I think, transformational for some businesses. The same thing would be for folks who are providing support to your abuse desk. I think that that is something that a lot of companies don’t pay attention to, and it can really profoundly affect your business.

[00:46:28.420] – Jonathan Denwood

All right, David. I’m going to follow up on your question because that was very tactful, David. I’m going to throw you this one. I don’t expect any insights. A couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure of interviewing Matt, Man, and Wag on the show. So when I think it’s over a year ago, the handcanade, the trigger was pulled, and Matt had his very public ongoing problems with WP engine. Were you that surprised when you heard his comments and what happened afterwards? Or obviously, I’m not asking you if you had any inside insight, but were you that surprised when the news came on your radar? And did you sense something was brewing anyway?

[00:47:33.340] – David Snead

So that is a pretty deep question. And I don’t have a personal viewpoint on the issue. I think what is super interesting for me as a lawyer, looking at that dispute, is actually reading the. I would suggest that anyone who’s interested in how the WordPress community works and how it is structured. Looking at the back-and-forth is very instructive. I think that actually answers your question, right? Was it brewing? What were the issues? Honestly, you asked me who I would recommend that folks follow. There are a couple of bloggers who are really great at dissecting what’s in those and extrapolating how they can be impactful in the WordPress community.

[00:48:52.840] – Jonathan Denwood

I have it to you, Kate.

[00:48:55.400] – Kurt von Ahnen

Well, David, the good news is we’re getting close to the end here. My last question is, if you could go back to the beginning of your career, if you had a time machine, and you went back in time, what advice would you give yourself just getting started?

[00:49:15.540] – David Snead

You all are asking a lot of questions that should be off the record. Lourdi, here’s what I would say to myself. Let’s say, back in my early days as a young associate at a law firm, getting involved in tech. Honestly, it is for folks in the tech community to just be their weird selves. And what I mean by be your weird self, it’s not that you, I don’t know, like to drive fast or something like that.

[00:50:00.700] – Kurt von Ahnen

But it’s totally, totally based on my experience, probably 10 years ago, starting to work at C-Panel.

[00:50:12.140] – David Snead

I called C-Panel, very, very friendly. I called it the Island of Misfit Toys because there were just so many people who did not care what anybody thought of them, that they were D&D players, and they would talk at meetings about their latest campaign. From an HR perspective, it was just a nightmare. But from creating a unique opportunity to be creative, so much more creative than when I was an associate at a law firm, and we all had to put on our suit jackets when we walked outside our office. There was no creativity in that. And being your weird self facilitates that creativity and leads to companies doing something different. Now, are you going to sell your company to a guy in a blazer and a white shirt? Yes, probably. But you’re going to have a whole lot more fun. I know I’m getting a little bit over-excited about this, but sitting at a table where somebody’s talking to me about their D&D campaign, super interesting, even though I couldn’t care less about D&D. But it’s super interesting. And those are the companies that I think create more value for themselves, for their customers, and for the founders.

[00:52:01.480] – David Snead

And that’s what I would do. I was a lot more creative when I figured that out myself.

[00:52:08.660] – Kurt von Ahnen

Great. Thanks for that.

[00:52:11.140] – Jonathan Denwood

All right, then. I think it’s time to wrap up the show. So, David, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and what you’re up to?

[00:52:19.400] – David Snead

Sure. So you can go to hostingsecurity. Net. That’s the Secure Hosting Alliance’s direct website. There’s also It’s the i2Coalitions, it’s i2coalition. Com, or you can email me directly at sneed@i2coalition. Com.

[00:52:39.160] – Jonathan Denwood

That’s fantastic. And, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to find out what you’re up to lately?

[00:52:44.400] – Kurt von Ahnen

Mañana Nomás. You can reach me on all the social channels on the website. And then if you want to connect personally, LinkedIn.com is there.

[00:52:54.440] – Jonathan Denwood

Like I say, it’s our 1,000th episode, Tribe. Thank you so much for your support. The numbers have been going up lately. We got some great interviews coming up in the next couple of months. I personally want to thank Kirk. I think you’ve been my co-host for almost three years, haven’t you, Kirk?

[00:53:18.750] – Kurt von Ahnen

It’s a little crazy, huh?

[00:53:20.220] – Jonathan Denwood

It’s gone so quickly, but thank you so much for your support and for turning up and contributing to the show. I’ve had the pleasure of having some great co-hosts over the, I think, the nine years of the show. And thank you so much, Tribe, for your support. And also the sponsors as well. They are much appreciated as well. Like I say, we’ll be back next week with another great interview. We’ve got some fabulous guests coming up this month and in April. We’ll see you next week, folks. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. We really do appreciate it. Why not visit the Mastermind Facebook group? And also to keep up with the latest news, click WP-tonic. Com/newsletter. We’ll see you next time.

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