2025-10-01 01:30:25
I think some of the best writing about technology PR is this ten-year-old article by Aaron Zamost: What’s Your Hour in ‘Silicon Valley Time’? It describes the cycles that companies go through in public perception, and the beauty of revisiting it ten years later is that you can see which of the examples are still relevant, or the domains that 404. As someone who has been around this clock probably a dozen times now, I highly suggest this for anyone “going through it.” Some of the most powerful words in the English language: This too shall pass.
See also: The Zen fable or old Chinese poem of the old man who loses his horse.
2025-09-29 23:50:56
I want to dedicate my blog post today to my dear friend and brother, Om Malik, whose birthday it is. Om is a multi-hyphenate, but at his core, he’s a writer, someone who looks at the world and parses it down for others, a seeker who appreciates the spark of creation before most others.
Om was one of the earliest users of WordPress and he was one of 8 people who came to the very first WordPress meetups at Chaat Cafe on 3rd street in San Francisco in 2005. (You can tell what an early adopter he is because he has the username “Om” on Twitter/X and Instagram and WordPress and probably more.) We had connected on the WordPress support forums when I helped him get set up around the 1.0 days. After I moved to San Francisco to take the job at CNET he connected me to people like Phil Black, Tony Conrad, and Toni Schneider who would become, respectively, an investor, board member, and CEO of Automattic. These are folks I still work with and consider close friends today. As a journalist, he had a keen nose for BS and made sure as a naïve 20-something in SF I was connecting with quality people.
Since we met we’ve both had a shared love for photography, and I’ve seen Om blossom into an amazing photographer with a really unique style and approach, in fact you can even buy some of his photography prints.
Over the years, we’ve dipped in and out of shared obsessions with cameras, watches, shoes, fashion, and design. We have a fair number of matching things in each. In photography we’ve shivered in minus thirty weather in Antarctica and Jackson Hole at odd hours to catch a special shot. We’ve traveled to Europe and Japan dozens of times, being very early (pre John Mayer and Kanye) to brands like Visvim. When I wear something like a bespoke, hand-made piece from 45R to speak at WordCamp US, he recognizes it off the cuff and even knows the one store on Crosby Street in New York where you can buy it. He is a tastemaker and an aesthetic connoisseur in every area he’s interested in, from food to coffee to pens, and everything in between. Sometimes we’ll start a journey together, for example, trying nice pens, and years later, I’ve moved on and he’s gone deep into collecting dozens of them, being in obscure forums and Reddits, or attending events like the SF Pen Show last month.
When you walk into a coffee shop with Om he doesn’t just know the barista’s name, he knows their dog’s name and the story of every person working there.
I’m 500 words in, and I still haven’t even scratched the surface of describing Om’s journey, from growing up in Delhi to becoming a journalist for a Japanese publication in New York, a book author, party promoter, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, photographer, and explorer. If you want to understand the AI bubble we’re in right now, you should read his book Broadbandits on the crazy telecom / Enron bubble. This is a long way to say, happy birthday Om!
2025-09-29 14:41:36
In an age where AI can generate an infinite amount of stuff, what matters? Some of the most interesting writing I’ve read on this comes from Will Manidis, who makes it biblical and says that Craft is the Antidote to Slop:
From Genesis, man enters not a paradise without labor but a world of intentional creation. The LORD God places man in the Garden of Eden “to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15) establishing labor not as punishment but as sacred vocation. This original calling invites us to co-create the Kingdom, tending and developing the world with intention and care. Our fundamental purpose is not consumption but participation in the ongoing work of creation.
The serpent’s temptation represents the first shortcut in human history.”Ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5) was not an invitation to deeper engagement with creation, but a way to get out of the work required to tend to it. The consequence wasn’t the introduction of work itself, but its corruption into burdensome toil: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). Humanity’s first sin was, in part, choosing the easy shortcut over the meaningful process – preferring effortless gain to the demanding but fulfilling work of tending the garden.
You can read the rest as screenshots on X or on his Substack, but I hope he gets a real website soon. This also makes me think you should watch the We Are As Gods documentary on Stewart Brand, supported by the amazing folks at Stripe Press.
2025-09-28 09:31:04
A few links for you:
Fun fact: this post has the ID of “150,000” in my wp_posts table.
2025-09-27 11:28:52
When WordPress started in 2003, I never dreamed it would power over 40% of websites, nine times the number two CMS, but I wrote on a notecard a list of five publications I admired and respected so much I wanted them to run on WP someday. In the interest of sharing your dreams to help them come true, here they are:
And one bonus: Houston Chronicle. (Gotta root for the hometown.)
There has been uneven progress toward this over the years; we’ve gotten some of the NYT and all of the New Yorker at one point, only to have them revert under new CTOs. Also, there have been some unexpected huge wins, like when Vox Media retired its proprietary CMS Chorus and brought over amazing publications like The Verge and New York Magazine. For any projects related to these publications, including trials or micro-sites, I’d be happy to provide my feedback on architecture, design, and opportunities, and contribute Automattic and VIP resources wherever they could be helpful.
I believe the most crucial aspect to get right for these customers is real-time co-editing, which is on the Gutenberg roadmap and shipping soon. If I were writing this list today I might choose some different targets.
2025-09-26 14:38:37
I love the culture of freestyle rap, it’s so inspiring to see how people can create such rich poetry riddled with allusions and puns on command. Last week I got to meet Harry Mack and see him improvise live and it totally makes sense that he has a jazz drums background. If you’re not familiar with Harry Mack, this is a good example of him taking three words: Imported, Lurking, Automatic and freestyling with them. (BTW, if you noticed, we finally got the domain spelled correctly.)
There is a video chat site called Omegle that paired you with random people, and Harry would record these encounters, such as this cute one with girls from Sweden who gave him the words Cartoon, Titan, Death. It’s awesome to see him meet Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
For some fun WordPress rap history, check out when Childish Gambino referenced me in a rap he performed on Tim Westwood back in 2012.
