News: I have a new job (Automattic)

Many of my friends make fun of me when I complain. They tell me I’m living the dream. And in ways I am. I do what I love, writing and speaking, and make a living from it all on my own (thanks to the help of readers like you).

But as an expert for hire type guy, one natural concern is how few experts actually do the things they write and talk about. Many famous gurus in many fields haven’t done the thing they write or speak about in years, if they ever did it at all (see how to call bs on a guru). I’ve always thought it’d be smart at some point to get back in the middle of something for awhile – do a sanity check on how much of the advice I give to other people I practice myself. Plus learn new things, face new challenges, to boldly go where… and most important perhaps, work as part of a team of people where I have something deeper at stake in the outcome. Wisdom accrues when you have the guts to dive into the thing you keep wondering about and see what happens.

As of this week, I’m an employee at Automattic – the company that hosts and maintains a popular instance of WordPress, among other things. I’ll be working as a team lead on wordpress.com (one of the top 20 websites in the U.S.). I’ve had sweet offers for jobs here and there over the years, but nothing came close to these folks, which is why I said yes. If I’m going to jump back in for awhile, these are the best people in the world, and one of the most important projects, I can imagine doing it with. It’s a distributed company so my dogs won’t even notice the change.

This news won’t change your experience here or, hopefully, what you think of me. I’m still a writer, and I’ll still be writing and speaking, and new books are in progress (I still have a shelf to fill). Of course everything I write here is entirely my independent opinion. But transparency is good practice and I wanted to make sure I shared all this with you.

Hope you’ll wish me well.