It is not surprising that the news about Automattic buying Tumblr has picked up a lot of coverage. I especially appreciated the notes of support from Tumblr founder David Karp, former CTO Marco Arment, and investor Bijan Sabet. I am beyond excited to see what the Tumblr team creates next, and I will definitely be connecting with alumni to hear their perspective.
There has also been a lot of speculation on the purchase price, which I think is missing the real story. I would like to take this opportunity to express my respect for Verizon and how they approached this entire process. They inherited Tumblr through an acquisition of a merger, a few steps removed from its initial sale; it’s probably not a company they would have bought on its own, but they nonetheless recognized that there is a very special community and team behind the product. It’s also worth noting at this point that Verizon is a company that will do over $130B in revenue this year and has over 139,000 employees.
First, they chose to find a new home for Tumblr instead of shutting it down. Second, they considered not just how much cash they would get on day one, but also — and especially — what would happen to the team afterward, and how the product and the team would be invested in going forward. Third, they thought about the sort of steward of the community the new owner would be. They didn’t have to do any of that, and I commend them for making all three points a priority.
Automattic is still a startup — I’m sure there are deep-pocketed private equity firms that could have outbid us, but the most likely outcome then would have been an “asset” getting chopped up and sold for parts. (This is a caricature and there are PE firms I like, but it’s not a terrible stretch of the imagination.) Instead, Tumblr has a new chance to redefine itself in 2019 and beyond. Its community is joining with WordPress’ 16-year commitment to open source and the open web.
Thank you Matt for continuing to have such a profoundly positive impact on the web. Couldn’t think of better hands to have Tumblr in.
Well said.
Thank you Matt, couldn’t be a more perfect fit. I’ve been waiting to see what happens over there, now I can’t wait to see it take off and build community. With your interest in photography, I suspect you’ll give Tumblr some juice to be more like Flickr, Ipernity, and Instagram.
I can’t wait to see what’s next for Tumblr. I was a big fan of the platform for quite some time. Unlike other social networks it could adapt to the user rather than the user having to adapt to it.
Best news I’ve read all year.
Thoughtful post on a piece of news that is getting dragged through the mud, thank you.
Great to hear about the acquisition. Excited for what’s to come. I’d love to see some life back on Tumblr – it was a vibrant place with lots of unique creation. The work the team did on the logged in dashboard was really fantastic and made for an amazing community.
Congrats. It’s exciting to see Tumblr live on as as someone who’s used WordPress a decade, browsed Tumblr years ago, and even having interned at companies Six Apart.
This is wonderful for the Tmblr and AutoMATTic teams! Excited to see how the community will benefit from the union of these great groups!
This is fantastic. I hope this acquisition allows to import some of the cool discovery features of Tumblr into WordPress. Congrats, Matt and Automattic.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Matt. Automattic is certainly a great home for Tumblr and I’m looking forward to see where you take it next!
This is wonderful news. I’ve been a member of Tumblr and WordPress since the beginning, and have come to know quite a few of the community at Tumblr over the years – and although their number has dwindled during the Yahoo/Verizon/Oath story, they are still there, and have been clinging to the hope that something like this might happen.
Awesome news, can’t wait to see what you do. Congratulations Matt
Congrats on the purchase and on keeping the gang together at Tumblr. I’ve always been a fan but honestly I forgot about them until their acquisition.
But my primary question was how / why you would label Automattic as a startup? Per Wikipedia you have around 900 employees and have been in business for almost 15 years. Seems like its thats beyond the startup business
Again I was just curious. And i’m a long time WordPress user (circa 2005 )
Good question, and I’m sure people wouldn’t define us as a startup. But we are still independent, and tiny compared to the internet giants which typically have tens of thousands of people.
Makes sense! Compared to Verizon we are all lemonade stands :o(). Congratulations again.
I applied to Automattic once for an Enterprise Growth Engineer and I was surprised when you responded.
Again excited about what you guys are doing. Keep up the good work!
“Never put a sling in the hands of Matt”
Our own modern day “David and Goliath” eh.. methinks you’re batting well above your average 😉
Matt, so glad that you guys are adding this community in your ecosystem … a few years back I led digital for Coca-Cola and we were looking at moving 2000 plus sites to WP VIP – I wish we could have made it work… really like that Automattic – still startup minded – has stayed true to it’s core beliefs and supporting an internet I want to be part of.
Hear, hear.
Yes. Unusual for such a huge firm to take such a thoughtful approach. You reached the right people inside Verizon and must have made a hell of a persuasive case. Companies this huge don’t take actions this thoughtful on their own.
I have been sad to see Tumblr style content keep moving off people’s blogs and the open web in general.
Hoping you find a solution to this.
Is community and the social aspects of Tumblr an important part of the acquisition or is that not a compelling aspect of Tumblr nowadays?
Great that Tumblr will keep Tumbling.
I think it’s super important and we want to grow the social side of blogging.
Great news! Now I can invest back on my Tumblr site with confidence in the future.
A 1000-person company isn’t really a startup by the standard definition, but it’s easy to see that Automattic is a company that sticks to the founding principles of a startup: employees wear many hats, knowledge sharing and collaboration across departments is high, bootstrap and then formalize your processes, etc.
I think what makes Automattic still a “startup” is that the company’s vision (and Matt’s) is still one geared towards “doing good.” It’s a throwback to the culture that created the foundation and technologies that power the Internet. That culture is alive and well within Automattic.
Have you given any thought to eventually restoring the Geocities Batchtorrent as a part of collecting and preserving passion sites of internet past/present/future?
No that hasn’t come up.