Last Tuesday, we had “State of the Word 2021,” a presentation by the joint founder of WordPress and the CEO Automattic, Matt Mullenweg. Automattic is a privately held company that runs the daily operations of WordPress.com. Unfortunately, trying to explain the actual business structure of WordPress to anyone outside the WordPress bubble is confusing and next to impossible.

The presentation was to be expected; suggesting that everything at WordPress is semi-excellent. The Gutenberg project is now on target after a rocky two-year development period. However, the reality is much more complicated and confusing, similar to trying to explain to ordinary people the business structure of WordPress.

I’ve made my feelings about Matt Mullenweg and his management and leadership style here. The two critical elements in his presentation for me were Matt’s total emphasis on blocks and Gutenberg. In fact, this was reiterated in almost every second sentence and in the question and answer session as well. This was particularly telling when asked about the future of Woocommerce. Matt’s answer was very revealing saying that Woocommerce was linked to the future of Gutenberg and blocks.

The second story was linked to the recent tornado that occurred in Kentucky and Illinois connected to what happened in an Amazon warehouse where six workers died, and 45 were rescued. The part of the story we discussed was Amazon’s policy of making employees leave their mobile phones in their cars or a locker. Personally, I feel this is immoral, given we are dealing with a warehouse-based place of employment in a notorious tornado area. I believe there is an attitude of disrespect and distrust that most large American large corporate companies have connected to hourly workers.

It would seem they see them as biological robots similar to what Sonmi-451 from the book and film Cloud Atlas, is forced to work in the nightmarish fast food restaurant  “Papa Song”. Then we have the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who to me is straight out of Blade Runner 2049 and is very similar in nature and attitude to one of its leading dark characters Niander Wallace Jr!

This is going to be the last WP-Tonic newsletter for 2021. We will be back in the second week of January 2022. I like to take the opportunity to wish you and your family a great and healthy Christmas and New Year.

Every Friday at 8:30 am PST we host the WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Tech Round-table Show where we discuss the latest WordPress and the general web news of the week. You can also watch the show LIVE on our WP-Tonic’s Facebook Group Page & YouTube channel..

Join Us Live

This Weeks Special Guest Panelist

Special Guest Panelists This Week are

Chris Brogan

https://chrisbrogan.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Brogan

Robert Jacobi: Director of WordPress at CloudWays

https://www.cloudways.com/blog/wordpress-evangelist-robert-jacobi-joined-cloudways/

This Week Show’s Sponsors

Castos: Castos

Atarim: Atarim

Bertha.ai: Bertha

LaunchFlows: LaunchFlows

This Week’s Articles That We Discuss During The Show

#1 – State of the Word 2021

State of the Word 2021

State of the Word 2021: WordPress Passes 43% Market Share, Looks to Expand the Commons Through Openverse

State of the Word 2021: WordPress Passes 43% Market Share, Looks to Expand the Commons Through Openverse

#2 – OSHA opens investigation into fatal Amazon warehouse collapse in Illinois

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/13/22833012/amazon-fatal-warehouse-collapse-osha-investigation-illinois-tornado

Amazon employees speak out against controversial phone ban after deadly tornado kills at least 6 warehouse workers in Edwardsville, Illinois

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-workers-speak-out-against-phone-ban-tornado-warehouse-deaths-2021-12

Sonmi-451 – Papa Song’s Cloud Atlas

Niander Wallace Jr Blade Runner 2049

#3 – Elementor: WordPress’ secret growth driver?

Elementor: WordPress’ secret growth driver?

#4 – Saagar Enjeti: Tim Cook CAUGHT Capitulating To China In Secret Deal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFLFGybONAM

#5 – Wrestling with Capitalism

https://accessally.com/blog/wrestling-with-capitalism/

Panel Recommendations of the Week

Spencer Forman: WP-Complete https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpcomplete/

Andrew Palmer: Andrew Palmer: Gutenberg AI – One-Click Elementor to Gutenberg – https://gutenbergai.com/

Jonathan Denwood: American Red Cross: https://www.redcross.org/

Our Regular Panel Members

Heather Renze: Heather Wild
Sallie Goetsch: wpfangirl.com
Stephannie Hudson: https://focuswp.co
Tanya Quintieri: Mrs Divi
Andrew Palmer: Andrew Palmer
John Locke:LockedownSEO.com
Spencer Forman: LaunchFlows.com
Jonathan Denwood:wp-tonic.com

WP-Tonic’s Weekly Newsletter

Sign up For WP-Tonic’s Weekly Newsletter Where You Read The Latest WordPress News & Reviews?

NEWSLETTER
#654 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Tech with Chris Brogan & Robert Jacobi was last modified: by