Sé Reed joins Jonathan and Luke to discuss WordPress contribution, community, dictatorship, leadership, accountability, optimism, exploitation, and what happens next. Sé shares her perspective and the impact that the past few years have had on her experience as a contributor. Jonathan has an “ah ha” moment about trust, Luke suggests a shift in focus, and Sé invites Luke back.

Transcript#

Jonathan:
Sé Reed, in the annals of WordPress history you have a rather unique distinction of being one of the few people to be identified for account deactivation by Matt Mullenweg.

Sé:
We’re just getting right into it. Okay. Softballs, we don’t need ya.

Jonathan:
So when I think about who might have a unique perspective on WordPress — both as an ecosystem, the project, the community — you’ve been pretty high on my list for a while. So I wanted to bring you on to Crossword and learn and share, talk about your perspective. So I’ll start with this one. When Matt did his post about JK Press — which was an interesting piece for a number of reasons — your name was referenced in that post. What was that experience like for you?

Sé:
It was — it was shoved right in there. That sucked, is what it did. And it has not been great since, honestly. It was shocking. Shocking is kind of the best word. Interestingly, when that post came out, my account had already been banned. So that post came out and said that the accounts of Joost, myself, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen would be banned. I have the timestamps of the bannings. So I was banned — yes, I had already been deactivated before that came out, and I had no idea that was — I don’t believe it was related.

Jonathan:
So you’d already been deactivated before the post, yeah.

Sé:
I don’t believe that it was like, now we’re gonna write this. So it was just kind of shoehorned in there. But yeah, two days prior, I had been deactivated and I had messaged and been like, what’s up? I didn’t use any clown emojis, so I’m not sure why my account’s not working suddenly. You know — you’re on Slack. Well, you probably don’t know actually. So I’ll tell you how it is. You’re on Slack and you’ve got all your little icons open on the left, and then suddenly one just gets a little alert, a little warning symbol. That’s what happens. Just a little blip! And I click over and it’s like, oh, you’re no longer logged in. So I had gotten no notification or anything that my account had been deactivated.

Jonathan:
So that was in January of 25. It’s now well into 26. Are you still deactivated?

Sé:
Well, glad you asked. So I was reactivated with the rest of the folks in that — well, I don’t actually know if Heather and Morten were reactivated. They had already left the community prior to that, multiple years prior to that, but I was reactivated in May of 2025 with the Jubilee. I was one of the Jubilee recipients, and then was able to attend WordCamp Europe last year. I am not currently able to attend WordCamp Europe. However, I was told that I am not allowed to talk about why. If I discuss that, I will — this is rough. There will be additional issues, apparently. So that is what I’ve been informed of. Technically, I’m not really, I guess, supposed to even talk to the WordPress community, but do we really know what that is? I don’t know what that means exactly. But I’m not attending WordCamps. I am hopeful that I will again one day attend WordCamps. But yeah, I wish I could answer that in excruciating detail. I am trying to follow my instructions.

Jonathan:
Yeah, fair enough. So I enjoyed seeing you at PressConf a couple weeks ago. And speaking of WordCamps — yours and my path, I was trying to remember exactly where this started, some of the impact that you’ve had on my own personal experience. The first talk that I ever gave was at WordCamp Long Beach many years back. And you played a significant role in both encouraging me and giving me the confidence to go in and do that.

Sé:
What what? 2019 in the house. I mean, I invited you specifically. That was that part.

Jonathan:
Yeah, yes. I was like, all right, if someone’s inviting me, that means that I can probably figure this out. And up until that point, I had not done public speaking. I had very little experience in that regard.

Sé:
You’re welcome, everyone. Another thing you can blame on me. It’s good.

Jonathan:
So for Sé — I think it’s fair to say, no pun intended there, that WordPress has been a fairly significant part of your identity over the years. Is that fair — your online identity?

Sé:
Hmm, my online identity? That and my secret mystery novel history.

Jonathan:
When you look up Sé Reed, Google does a helpful summary of Sé, and there’s two broad categories: her connection to the WordPress community and her work writing domestic thrillers.

Sé:
I want S.E. Reid to know that she should be using her full name. And luckily we are not in the same industry. But S.E. Reid, if you’re out there, I get your emails sometimes. So — I’m sure someday I’m gonna meet this person and we’re gonna be like, hey, here’s all the emails I’ve gotten — interview requests. It’s fun.

Luke:
Have you ever been tempted to just respond and say, okay, yeah, I’ll do an interview.

Sé:
No, I have like a whole thing about — I can’t even really pretend that type of stuff. I’m kind of a stick in the mud with that sort of thing. I’m like, no, I can’t lead people on even for a joke. I have done that with spam texts before. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that. I’ve chronicled a few of them. One time someone asked me if I was gonna come to the meeting and I was like, yeah, are there snacks? If there’s snacks, I’m coming.

Jonathan:
So you’ve been fairly deeply involved in this community. You’ve had a podcast that — yeah, there was a statement like “learn community deeply,” and Sé Reed would be up there. You’ve been doing this for a long time. So I imagine the water cooler has been running for a long time.

Sé:
Yeah. Podcast was twelve years, by the way. Twelve years of the WP Watercooler. That’s a long time. Well, it’s not running anymore. We closed it.

Jonathan:
That was before podcasts were cool.

Luke:
Wait, hold on. Stop, stop, stop. Podcasts are cool?

Jonathan:
Very cool, Luke. They’re very cool.

Luke:
I don’t know, I would self-describe — alright, so WP Watercooler, twelve years, not running anymore, how come?

Sé:
Because — again, in that same thing — I really like to speak the truth. I don’t like to gloss over things. I don’t like to pretend that something is great if it’s not. And also, we were very hype on WordPress, right? We’re like, contribute, get involved. And we were really struggling with doing that when we knew all the stuff that was going on. What it really came down to is like, we didn’t want to be haters — even though we were speaking the truth, we kept having to put a caveat onto everything and be like, well, yeah, you should contribute, you might be abused a little bit, whatever. So really that was the impetus behind it. It was really sad. It was a big part of my — it was every week, right? And it was a live broadcast. We had, and still have actually, a great Discord where we have a community around it. And I definitely miss it, but I don’t miss the weekly conflict in my heart about how do I talk about this positively without also warning people? It was just too complicated at that point. So we decided — you know, there are a lot of other podcasts, yourself included. I don’t know if you were around yet — you were, right, 2024. So a lot of other podcasts had come in, even weekly ones, so we weren’t the only ones holding down the fort anymore. And so I think it was fine. It was time for us. Message-wise, we knew too much is really the problem. We’d seen too many things. I’ve seen things. Attack ships on fire.

Jonathan:
So one of the things we reference a fair amount over the past couple of seasons is the WPCC. The acronym can mean different things, but in the context of this conversation —

Luke:
Wait, really? I thought it was WordPress Community Collective. I’m not in on the joke. Explain the joke.

Jonathan:
Do you remember, Luke — you’re getting old when Mary on stage referenced the WPCC and she was referencing a different one. That’s the campus connect.

Sé:
Mary Hubbard. Yes, which was founded much after the WordPress Community Collective. Well — it’s not “the WordPress Community Collective.” See, now you’re making me say it. This is like when we all started to say “WP Engine, WordPress Engine” — I have never said that before in my life until now. I don’t ever say “the WordPress Community Collective.” It’s WP. I like to think about the WP as the community, because you could use it without trademark, because you can’t trademark WP. So WP to me is the greater ecosystem. It’s sort of what represents the greater ecosystem as opposed to the specific term which we all have a relationship with.

Luke:
So it’s not WordPress Community — it’s just WP. Alright.

Jonathan:
Yeah. So the WPCC — how many years old is it at this point?

Sé:
Well, technically we founded it in 2022. However, it was a nonprofit charity sponsored project at that point in time. It was not an independent organization. And then in December of 2024, we became an independent organization registered in the state of California, a mutual benefit organization. And we’re working towards our 501(c)(6) that enables us to advocate for our members and work for the greater good of our members and our industry. So it’s not technically a charity. There’s a lot of different levels of nonprofit status in the US, and 501(c)(3)s are public good charities and they’re very limited in what they’re able to do in terms of programming, in terms of who they pay. Open source has not been accepted as a valid public good by the IRS for these designations. You can’t actually really pay people to code and then have that be a nonprofit thing. But that’s a whole other conversation. So we are a mutual benefit organization where we work for the benefit of our members and our industry, and we are able to do some advocacy, which I hope we’re able to get into — not today — I mean, I hope the organization is able to do more of, because open source is ever more important in my mind.

Luke:
So, Sé, I was one of the first members — not that first round, I should say. I was one of the first round and I have been a member since, and about maybe three months ago, I just signed out of Slack — just your Slack, just WPCC.

Sé:
All the Slacks or just our Slack?

Luke:
Because I didn’t understand — what am I doing here? I’m not really part of the conversation. There wasn’t a lot happening. Tell me, why should I log back in?

Sé:
Well, first of all — you don’t just… I have like Slacks on that I haven’t checked… Do you have — are you inbox zero too?

Luke:
I’m one of those, yeah. And proud of it.

Sé:
Well, that makes sense then, I get it now why you did that. All right, so I am just adjusting to that type of human being. Organized and clear. I’m like, wow, how do I wrap my hand around that?

Luke:
I’m asking, what is WPCC doing? What is happening?

Sé:
Yeah, well, what have you missed in your three months that you haven’t been around? You missed, I believe, the commentary that — so here’s the deal. The idea is that our organization is based on our members, and that the members need to have a voice, right? So it’s not just that they have a voice in the community, or that we’re representing the community. It’s also that the members are able to participate in what we do. So for example, our current thing that we’re about to launch — well, we have two things we’re about to launch, but the thing that you have missed is weighing in on the next fellowship that we are doing, which is an AI fellowship, which is kind of exciting. So we put our framework together for the AI fellowship — here’s what it looks like — and then we put it in GitHub, our members-only GitHub, and then have been asking members for their input. Like, is this important to you? What would you want out of this? We have a pay scale, the open source pay contributor standard that we’ve developed, and that’s both for in-house and hopefully others as well. Which of these pay rates would be a good idea? What types of output would you like from a fellow? So really making sure that the members — the fellowship will be an extension of the members as well. And the reason we’ve landed on AI, well, probably for obvious reasons. But the reason for the community is because I don’t know if you know this, but it’s really hard to pay attention to everything. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed.

Luke:
Occasionally, yeah.

Sé:
There’s a lot of stuff happening. And especially for folks who aren’t right up in the community — folks who have their own agency or their own web development, they can’t pay attention to every single thing, every single post on the project. So a lot of folks were talking about — interestingly, it basically comes down to, they want DevRel for AI, right? They want to know what’s going on. They want to know what the AI team is doing and how that’s going to impact them. Yeah, there’s some connectors and an MCP framework — what does that mean for the community and for the people who are using WordPress in their work, and not just the kind of insular community that we’re usually talking about? What does that mean for the people who are using WordPress, and our clients? Because a lot of people work with businesses and clients and people who are not in the WordPress community, and we need to give that information to them as well. There’s gonna be a new page in 7.0 — it’s still in there, right? The connectors. And people are gonna be like, what’s — it is hard to keep track. I was like, real-time collaboration is out, not AI, right?

Luke:
Connectors. It’s hard to keep track of what’s in and out.

Sé:
Yeah. So, what does that mean? How does that work? And where can the community go besides just straight up the posts from the AI team, which are of arguable use, arguable benefit to the community? I mean, there is communication that’s happening.

Luke:
They were probably written by AI.

Sé:
They’re totally written by AI, but we need context, right? We need to understand, and we need someone there to be paying attention — not just to bring the information back to us, but also to represent the interests of the community, because I don’t see that happening. I don’t see that going on. That’s what we’re here for.

Jonathan:
Sé, I have a question for you. Given the personal experience that you’ve had, how — maybe how, slash where — do you find the motivation to do what you’re doing for a project like the WPCC? You’re talking about a lot of work. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, but you’re part of the team there, you have the CEO hat at the moment, there’s a fair amount of responsibility with that. You’ve got a budget that you’re working with, members — there’s a lot going on there. And you also have your own personal business and your own life outside of all of this. Given what you’ve experienced, there’s a degree to which I feel like — how do you manage to still stay in all this?

Sé:
I mean, sheer tenacity. No, no — it’s values. It’s my stupid values. Really, it’s obnoxious, right? But let’s be real. I really value open source software. I really value the ability of human beings around the world being able to have a software that they can use to publish things. I believe in the dream that we have all been collectively dreaming — and it turns out it was a dream — but I believe in that dream of this global community that’s working together for something, for the greater good.

Luke:
That hits home so hard. I mean, it’s sad because it really has felt like a betrayal.

Sé:
Yeah, it has. I mean —

Luke:
And when you talk about values like that, Sé, I think this is what Jonathan was getting to when he used the word identity earlier. It is a core part of your identity. And to have someone turn around who is supposed to share those values and say, no, sorry, you’re not part of this — that must be real tough.

Sé:
That has been hard. I think it has been hard for the whole community, because we all — like I said, we had a different vision. Some people are like, I knew whatever. It’s like, yeah, we knew some of it, but… So I don’t want to get too far into politics..

Luke:
No, let’s do it. Let’s go into politics.

Sé:
.. tech is really married to capitalism, right? Let’s not kid ourselves about how good of friends capitalism and tech are. And open source software represents something different than just pure capitalism, right? Like high paychecks and venture capital and whatever. Open source software is about public good and community good. And without trying to scare anyone, that’s mildly socialist. I don’t want to freak anyone out. It’s not that I’m saying we should all be socialists or whatever, but I’m saying that the underlying premise of a community-created, community-supported thing, something that everyone’s volunteering for, for the greater good, not a direct personal benefit right away — like we’re all working together for the collective, right? That’s what we’ve been doing.

Jonathan:
When I came out of WordCamp US where Matt started this war with WP Engine, I think one of the things that took a hit was — up till that point, I had felt this strong sense of personal ownership that, like, this WordPress thing is also mine. And when I would advocate for someone else to come into WordPress, I felt like I was inviting them to have a piece of this as well. And it was suddenly, no, WordPress.org is mine. And Matt, to his credit, he’s corrected some of those things, some things have been clarified.

Luke:
He hasn’t actually corrected it. It’s still his legally.

Jonathan:
Right, but —

Sé:
I mean, I believe the words “double down” are actually the words I would use, especially with this most recent, “hey, it’s mine, so I’m gonna go ahead and nominate a team that can do anything and they only have to answer to me.” I mean, that’s still the same thing. Sorry, go ahead — not to interrupt your point. There’s nuance, there’s certainly nuance.

Jonathan:
There’s some nuance to it, but it took a hit — my own sense of identity took a hit, because up to that point, so much of my own life and career had been built around this sense of like, yeah, I’m contributing in the ways that I can to this thing and it’s growing. And then suddenly it felt like I was being asked to pick a side in a war that I didn’t sign up for. And I was like, well, why are we doing this? I was fairly to the outside and feeling that. I can only imagine from your perspective, having been so integrated and then working on things like the WPCC, whose aim is like, hey, we’re trying to actually contribute actively to this and have a big impact.

Sé:
Yeah, I think that moment felt like a real bait and switch to all of us at that time. Because we all knew it was a — I think I viewed Matt as a steward, right? We had multiple one-on-one conversations over the course of time, not recently. And I asked him once what his post-life plan was for WordPress, and he’s like, it’s in my will, right? And that’s the type of thing that comes from someone who is stewarding something. They feel like they are moving this through as opposed to claiming it for themselves. I guess it could be just the impression that I got — that it was more of a stewardship versus an ownership. And I feel like in that moment, it became about ownership. And that’s why I liken it to the switch — it suddenly went from a mildly socialist kind of concept to like, nope, just kidding, it’s straight up capitalism and he owns it. And your labor is now directly being contributed not to a nonprofit, not to a community, not to an idea, not to something that is collectively owned, but to someone who is already post-economic. Like literally that is what it switched to in a very short amount of time.

Luke:
I hate this word post-economic. Can we just say very rich?

Sé:
No, we have to use post-economic now. Sorry.

Luke:
Do we? It aligns us too closely with the socialists.

Sé:
I mean, I wish we were all post-economic. You want to talk about AI and post-economy? I think it’s a stupid term, honestly, because I do think we will soon see what post-economic looks like for a lot of the people in the world. And I don’t mean that in “they’re very rich.” I mean that in there’s like no economy.

Jonathan:
So what is the opposite — pre-economic? What is that?

Sé:
I mean, we could get into AI — it’s a slightly different topic — but I feel that we were all impacted. We all felt a collective impact and dealt with it in various ways. When that happened, we sort of felt the rug be pulled out from under us. We were like, wait, what is the situation? What are we contributing to? What is this project? So you say it was hard — for me, I think it was hard for all of us, anyone who believed in that vision that we had been contributing to, inviting people into. I had just spent a lot of time, when I was marketing team rep, working on the contribution onboarding, right? And the contribution pipeline — the now defunct marketing team.

Luke:
What’s a marketing team? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Sé:
So when I was the team rep of the marketing team, I was working on the contribution pipeline, and we had just gotten — I don’t even remember what number it was — we had just gotten Get Involved into the WordPress dashboard in the admin, and that linked to a page on WordPress.org which was slash-contribute. Like that hadn’t existed before. We have the dashboard in millions of installs across the world, and there wasn’t a Get Involved tab. And we workshopped saying “Get Involved” or “Contribute.” Contribute sounds like it’s money.

Jonathan:
Right, yeah, I like the distinction.

Sé:
Yeah, so we workshopped it, we worked on this thing. There was a GitHub issue about it — what is the language we’re using? But it went in there and then we created this page. We adapted a little program that they had made, I believe for WordCamp — I think it was originally WordCamp Asia, and then WordCamp Europe had modified it — which was basically to figure out which team you would want to contribute to during Contributor Day. It’s like, what are you interested in? And at the end it gives you a little recommendation for the team. So we modified that, updated it, got it all together. It’s a huge deal to get stuff on WordPress.org — apparently less now, but at the time it was a big deal. So we got a slash-contribute page with this little program on it that people could go to and pick their team. And I gotta tell ya, I feel personally guilty for that, because I just made a better pipeline for exploited labor. I’m like — so I’m just telling you to volunteer for this dude. And then also I’m telling you to volunteer for WordCamps, which are run by a for-profit organization — WPCS owns all of the WordCamps, does all the WordCamps, it’s not the foundation. So all of this has been made clear. And I think, just coming back to that tenacity or why I’m still around — I believe in what we were doing. And I feel like we’re all sort of in a wait-and-see place. We need to wait and see what happens with this lawsuit. We need to wait and see what the legal take is on what powers the dictator, if you will, has for the project. And it’s gonna be uncomfortable while we wait, but I feel like that’s what a lot of people [are doing] — a lot of people are branching off into Spotify or EmDash or whatever the heck, but a lot of the bigger hosts —

Luke:
Shopify.

Sé:
Did I call it Spotify?

Luke:
I do it all the time. I’m sure everybody listening does the same.

Sé:
Yeah, of course they do. I don’t even have Spotify or Shopify — although I have used it. All right, anyway, the point is that I feel like it’s hard to just continue to contribute in the same way that we did when we don’t know what we’re contributing to. And at this point, we don’t know, because it’s Matt’s, but it’s kind of not. But it’s still the community.

Jonathan:
Yeah. Well, but this is also the point that you brought up earlier, because I’ve just started to re-contribute to the hosting team. And it’s been a bit of time since I’ve done that. The reason why — there’s a few reasons why, but one of them is I like the people that are involved in this.

Sé:
Is it because you work for a hosting company?

Jonathan:
Convesio is no longer focused on hosting, so that’s a different thing. But for me, I like the people that are involved in this. I like this idea of the WP, because whatever happens next, I’m still optimistic about the future of this project and the broader ecosystem. Whatever happens next, my life is forever altered for the time that I’ve spent in this space and the people that I’ve gotten to know — the people who invited me to speak at WordCamps back when that was a risky thing to do, “who is this guy, what is he talking about.” And I love the opportunities that this community has given to so many folks who wouldn’t have had them otherwise. You can’t take that away from all those who’ve had them. So I guess this is the optimistic take. But the question remains —

Sé:
I live for the optimistic take. I need it right now, so I’m happy to hear it.

Jonathan:
I think for the WPCC in particular, I have a hard time, even given my optimistic nature, of imagining that being anything but an uphill battle to find ways to contribute. If I heard you right, part of what you’re thinking is like DevRel for the AI team. What’s the degree to which that’s being asked for by the project? So is that person who steps into that being set up for failure — to be like, yeah, don’t talk to this person?

Sé:
Are you being set up for failure in your hosting team contributions? I mean, why would it be any different?

Jonathan:
I don’t think so, and I like to hear that. That’s what I’m curious about. And I think that’s a good sign. It’s like — how do you navigate this? It feels like there’s an unspoken direct odds between what the project is doing and what the WPCC is.

Luke:
What I think you’re trying to say, Jonathan, is — so if Sé is persona non grata, and she is the CEO of WPCC, where does that leave other people from WPCC? That’s the question, I think.

Sé:
It’s Sé, that’s the problem. This is a question — it is, I guess, an open question that people have. And I think my answer to it is: I am not synonymous with the WPCC. I am working for my members and for the board of directors, who are active WordPressers and believe in the WordPress community.

And there’s no reason that anyone else should be tainted by the brush that has affected me. First of all, I don’t deserve what happened to me. I did not do anything wrong. I did not do the things that I was accused of doing. I was not collaborating with Joost and Karim. I was not planning a fork. I wasn’t even talking to Joost and Karim. I did not do anything wrong. At all. The only thing that I did —

Luke:
Not that planning a fork is wrong, just to be clear.

Sé:
No, I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong in terms of the project. The reason that I was banned, or have my current status of whatever that might be, has nothing to do with anything that I have done. And that is the really sad part about it, because the truth is it has remarkably affected my reputation. And that is what’s really sad. In your last episode, y’all were talking about leadership. Do you remember talking about leadership? And Luke, you were talking about leadership in the WordPress community, and you were like, we need this leadership. And then, you know, maybe there’s some leadership happening now. But I want to ask you a question about that, and this relates: can you have leadership without accountability?

Luke:
I mean, of course you can.

Sé:
No, you can’t. It’s dictatorship. Without any accountability, you do not have leadership, because leadership is about people choosing to follow you. That’s what you’re leading, and people follow, yeah?

Luke:
Okay, we just have different definitions. People still follow dictators. Horrible people are leaders. I agree with you, Sé, we don’t disagree. It’s just when you asked me that question, I have a different definition of leadership in my mind.

Sé:
Well, that’s true. Okay, so let me rephrase. Does leadership in the world exist without accountability? 100%. I do not personally believe that true leadership is possible without accountability, because that to me is not going to be based off of the actual leading that is happening. It is based off of maybe someone’s money or someone’s chokehold on something, or because people don’t have another choice. But I don’t necessarily agree that that is leadership.

Luke:
Would I follow a leader without accountability? That is a more difficult question. And I think the answer’s gotta be no, hell no. Why would I do that?

Sé:
I don’t know, but you did say that you admire DHH. He has his own issues. There are a lot of issues of accountability within the tech industry in terms of our leadership. And there have been some great examples of that. Even Linus — Linus Torvalds — he basically apologized, he took accountability for some of the things that he did within his tenure. You know, dictator, whatever — I guess he’s still kind of dictator, but he had a change of heart. There have been examples of leaders who take accountability for their own actions. I mean, even not taking action for your own personal accountability — taking accountability for the direction of the project. Let’s say someone is like, look, this website doesn’t look great. Is it everybody else’s fault? Or who’s taking it — is it the leader’s fault?

Luke:
Yeah. I have a big issue with the way that Matt has not taken any accountability for the fact that he has not been around. I talk about accountability — what has the release lead, Matt Mullenweg himself, been doing every release? And I asked this question — not now — for 7, as did Matthias, who also is sort of strangely silent. I just don’t know.

Sé:
Yeah, every release for the past like five years or something.

Luke:
So actually I asked this question at WordCamp Asia, to a panel this year. And the answer was — I mean, a little vague, but it sort of just put the issue to rest for me — which was: the release lead’s role has changed. And now the release lead is more very big picture and not involved day to day. All right. I didn’t get the memo. I don’t think the memo was ever released. That’s fine, now I know — the release lead isn’t really involved, isn’t expected to be involved.

Sé:
So who’s giving the blessings then? Because the feature ads need to be blessed — and that is a term, that is the actual term. I’m not making that up, I’m not using sarcasm. Literally, who is blessing it if it’s not the project lead?

Luke:
Yep, it is the term. The problem isn’t so much to me who’s blessing it. It’s, does the blessing happen in a public place where we can all see it? And that does seem to be — it seems to be behind closed doors at the moment, doesn’t it?

Sé:
Absolutely. And that is another side of accountability, right? And this is part of that weird bait and switch thing too. It’s like, we’re working in open, we’re working in the public — except for these things. These things are secret and silent over here, and we’re not allowed to talk about them.

Luke:
And how dare you get upset about us including our premium product in WordPress core. You should be grateful.

Sé:
I mean, I am grateful that that has now changed, by the way — that the featured plugins, for example, have changed. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the lawsuits or the foundation being added to the lawsuits. But I am very glad that it has been changed.

Jonathan:
As I’m listening to the two of you, I’m thinking about leadership and accountability. And one thing that’s striking me is — how do I put this — I don’t consider Matt to be someone that I’m following. And I haven’t really thought of that consciously, but that is a change that’s happened over the past couple of years for me. But to be fair, for the type of person I am, there’s very few people that I’m willing to follow. And as I’m thinking about this, I think I do agree actually that accountability is one of the attributes that I value. Because to me there’s a trust component to this idea of following. It’s like, can I trust where they’re taking me? Now, I’m able to work with lots of folks, including who I wouldn’t follow into something I don’t trust per se, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together on things. But there is something — I think for me, what stands out is that Matt is someone who I certainly have held in really high regard over the years, from my earliest involvement to the project. My first post on .org many, many years ago, he contributed to, and that started this trajectory of “I assume the best until I’ve experienced otherwise.” And in my first conversations with him over the years — also I worked at Automattic, so I got a chance to work in that context. And with the whole WP Engine stuff, I’m realizing now that something shifted. And I think it was the acting on our presumed collective behalf, while feeling that — wait a minute — it felt like a bit of a betrayal for me as well.

Sé:
Yeah, I mean, there was exploitation. We were used — we, the community. I was actually not at WordCamp US, because I didn’t want to go — I wasn’t prohibited from going, but I didn’t want to support what was happening already. But I think in that moment, the audience of the community was used as leverage. That doesn’t feel good.

Jonathan:
Yeah, and I would just add a nuance. It doesn’t feel good. Exploitation — it’s a strong word. I can agree that it could be the right one, whether it was conscious or not. And to me, this is part of what makes it difficult — I think a lot of things that Matt has done are what I think he believes to be the right thing, and that he’s trying to work towards this bigger picture, whatever that may be. That’s what’s made it complicated for me. And Luke and I have talked about this a lot. I have no love for private equity in particular. And I think there’s a lot that Matt could have done to bring more of us on board with it.

Sé:
He just squandered it all. We all would have totally supported him, 100%. In fact, we were working on it. We were working actively on Five for the Future and how to make — and this is part of where the WPCC was part of that — how do we get these companies to contribute their fair share? And what I had realized, and why we founded the WPCC, was because — again, capitalism — but it’s actually really difficult for companies to just hire random people and then ship them out somewhere else. It doesn’t make sense. It’s this person, they’ve got no ROI, they don’t have the same reporting metrics. If you have just a sponsored contributor, how do you fit them into your world? They’re not on anyone’s team. It’s been very confusing for a lot of companies.

Luke:
Well, I want to push back on the just-broad-label “capitalism bad” sort of thing that you’re doing, because I’m a capitalist, actually.

Sé:
I’m not saying it’s bad or good. I’m just using it to describe what is happening.

Luke:
I’ve always approached contributing — and a bunch of companies in the WordPress ecosystem, Elementor is a great example, they contribute a lot actually, and they could tomorrow cancel all their contributions and not have any real negative effect. Who’s going to keep them accountable? I’m rethinking this accountability thing that I signed up for with you, Sé, actually — I don’t know how much I agree with it. I think maybe you can sometimes trade trust for accountability, but I need more time to ruminate. Anyway, we’ll come back to that another time.

Sé:
Yeah, it’s a thing. I mean, I think you would have trust because there is accountability — that you can trust someone will hold themselves accountable, or will account to you what is happening. That’s literally what the word means, right? They will make an account of what has happened, which means just acknowledging what’s going on. That’s literally where the word comes from.

Luke:
I think what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want contributions to ever feel forced. I don’t want getting involved — if we want to use that; I really hate “get involved,” the grammar doesn’t work for me — but I don’t want that ever to feel like, you have to get involved or there is going to be some sort of consequence. And what Matt did with WP Engine made it feel that way. That was one of my biggest problems with it. Now people are contributing out of fear. I think WordPress is at its most beautiful when fully capitalist, fully money-making, money-driven companies change one little tweak and then start contributing to WordPress for no reason, with no return. And that happens. That’s not unheard of, and we have examples of it.

Sé:
But what I have to say — I mean, okay, you can finish your sentence. I think what we have is individuals at those organizations who are making a very strong case because they believe in it. And to that end, I’ve had conversations with many of these larger companies that have expressed exactly that. For example — I’m trying not to out anyone specifically — but they’re the reason that there is a contribution program, and they manage all of that and they do all of the advocacy. And it’s not about the C-suite at the company. It’s not about any sort of metrics there. It’s really because one person is advocating for that and making it happen. And sometimes when that one person leaves, or there’s a switch in positions, that can go away. And we have seen examples of that as well. Specifically, you mentioned Elementor. They absolutely are totally contributing. But the same issues exist there as with everything else, in that there’s no standard, right? So you can have multiple people contributing as your sponsored contributor who are getting paid differently, who provide different reports, who provide different types of contribution. And then that gets funneled back to the person who’s managing that program, and then that person turns it into something palatable for the organization, or justifies it in some way. But that’s what’s happening.

Luke:
It’s been my experience — yeah, I think you’re right about a lot of that. It’s been my experience specifically with Elementor that it comes from the very, very top, the willingness to and excitement about contributing.

Anyway, that aside — talk me through, why is it important? Obviously accountability is a huge value for you. Help me understand why it’s important for everything to have a standardized approach. Isn’t there some sort of beauty in the range and diversity of different approaches to contributing?

Sé:
Of course, but it makes it very difficult for companies that do not work on variability and randomness to contribute. And that’s specifically what we’re talking about. It’s not the beauty of contribution. It’s how do you get a company that doesn’t have that role, that has to report to shareholders, that has a board of directors that may or may not care at all — you have to standardize it for that. It’s not because people in the project should be contributing a specific way or have a specific standard. It’s to make this — I mean, we’re literally talking about how can these companies contribute, and why are they not contributing? That has been the problem that I have been trying to solve, because they want to contribute, a lot of them — or there’s a person there who wants to do it — but it becomes really complicated when you have all of these different inputs happening, and then you have to make it make sense in a boardroom, or you have to make it make sense in a monthly report.

Luke:
Yeah, and that’s where I’ve become more of a fan of letting it not make sense, and just leaning into the fact that it doesn’t make sense.

Sé:
I’m a big fan of things not making sense, so I’m with you. But I don’t know if you are familiar with corporate organizations, because that is not really how they fly. Roll. Fly.

Luke:
But I’ve seen — I am familiar. Well, that’s how it flew at WP Engine when I was contributing for them.

Sé:
It didn’t work out for WP Engine, Luke.

Luke:
It does work out. And I think sometimes the pitch can be, look, it worked out — for a time. I think it’s working out. It’s hard to say if it’s working out now, because now they have an intrinsic motivation to be seen as contributing one way or another. But I can say it worked out, because after I left, then there was a gap and then they were in trouble with Matt. I’m not saying I was the one that was keeping them in the good books, I’m not saying that at all, but while I was there, it was working out.

Sé:
I mean, you probably were, because you were being paid to contribute and you were actively contributing. And then you left and there wasn’t a standard in place there. I’m not trying to say that you didn’t set up your standards properly or something, but your role as that paid contributor — did they just say, okay, well, now we’re hiring for this position again? Or is that sort of a position that you had sculpted yourself more individually?

Luke:
Yeah, it could definitely have been the latter. I’m trying to suggest that organizations like WordPress.org and WPCC — maybe the shift in focus could be, here are the reasons why you should contribute to WordPress, and instead be, contributing to WordPress is the right thing to do, and it’s interesting and fun. We can’t give you a justification financially for how it will give you a return on your investment. Jonathan’s shaking his head. He disagrees. That’s not going to fly. Why?

Jonathan:
Sadly, I love that idea as well, but for me, the beat that I’ve been drumming for a long time is I think we can’t rely on altruism. And we have to find ways to connect it to a bottom line for people who don’t care about the things that we care about.

Luke:
The drum I’ve been beating, the beat I’ve been drumming — they both work strangely, actually.

Sé:
The drum you’ve been beating? The beat you’ve been drumming? Yeah, they do.

Luke:
That’s interesting, because my perspective is exactly the opposite. We can’t rely on it making sense. We have to make it work based on altruism.

Jonathan:
That’s why we’re friends. And I would argue that the answer is actually somewhere in the middle, and there’s a tension between those.

Sé:
Yes, but we have to make altruism make sense. So this is the thing. The WPCC is not advocating that — the WPCC is advocating for the gray area, which is that you can have some financial benefit, you can have sponsorships, you can have public notification, notoriety. You can have that. You can get your accolades, like the contributor appreciation campaign that we ran with GoDaddy Pro, and people are like, thank you. That’s contributing in a way that is getting them ROI, is getting them attention — even though maybe it’s feel-good stuff, that has value in corporate America. And I don’t know what you did with your contributions with WP Engine, but were you going around being like, I contribute, I do this, and talking up WP Engine and how great WP Engine was? Because that is really hard for the contributor to do, but the companies need that. And that is really the model that we’ve built the WPCC on: that we can pay the contributors standard rates, with clear expectations of what we’re getting back from them, clear expectations of what they’re doing there — not just randomly picking issues, right? And then we can also celebrate and promote the companies that are paying for that. We can say, here are your accolades, and it doesn’t have to be another burden on the contributor who should just be contributing, not doing marketing for the company that’s paying them. And another thing that happened with these contributors — not the ones who are full-time working, but the ones who are — Tammie Lister actually coined the term “fractional contributor,” right? I’m a fractional CEO. You keep having to go back and say, okay, well this worked, can I have some more money now please, every six months or whatever. People can’t build lives on that, right? You have to go to the meetings, you have to sell yourself, you have to do all this stuff, and then that company has to try to fit you in, or it’s a six-month contract, or a three-month contract. And that contributor — are they like a NASCAR thing where they’ve got the logos on them, or are they just able to work?

That’s why the idea of us being sort of that connector, that conduit, allows us to support both sides. Give the companies financial incentive and a structure that works for them, and give the contributors the freedom of a little bit of stability, and freedom from trying to pimp their sponsor.

Luke:
Yeah. Well, Sé, I really love that approach. I think it makes a lot of sense. I’ve contributed as a NASCAR car before, pimped out with stickers and emails requesting bios and summaries for Twitter or whatever. And I’ve also contributed, and actively contribute now, with a very light touch where that’s really not a focus at all. I think making access to contribution sponsorship money easier for both parties — the contributor and the person contributing their money — I think that that is only a good thing. I think that WPCC is desperately needed, and I’m excited to see what happens next. The problem is —

Sé:
Are you going to log back into Slack? Please, come on up.

Luke:
All of the interesting stuff happens outside my time zone. And I miss it all.

Sé:
Well, no, not anymore. One of our board members, Jono Alderson, is in the UK also. So are you in the UK? I’m just making an assumption. I don’t actually know where you are. Are you Australian? Dang it. I’m always messing those up. Stupid American. Sorry.

Luke:
Well, I’m not in the UK. That just makes it worse. That’s okay. I am [Australian], yeah. All right, I’ll log in for you. Sé, thank you so much for coming on to Crossword.

Sé:
Okay, bye.

Luke:
I was trying to wrap up — were you surprised by that wrap up?

Sé:
Yeah, a little bit. That’s okay.

Luke:
I’m sorry, I thought I was circling the drain pipe there for a little bit. I thought I was doing too long a job of the conclusion. Jonathan, you take us out in a different way.

Jonathan:
Sé, if anyone wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to do so?

Sé:
They can join the WPCC and log into the WPCC Slack, where they can ping me anytime. I’m in the Post Status Slack, I’m in the Repository Slack. There’s the LinkedIn thing. I’m pretty accessible.

Jonathan:
When are we gonna see some new blog posts on Sé Reed Media? I was checking the timestamps and it’s like 2016, I think.

Sé:
I know, I was like, oh, I’m gonna do this, and then it’s been a month. I have like three articles that I have half written, and I’ve had to split one into two pieces. I always get too ambitious with my ideas and then I try to shove them all into one article. So I need to just be happy with saying one thing instead of trying to say all the things. I’m working on it.

Jonathan:
There’s a tagline in there somewhere with “Sé all the things,”. Sé, thank you for joining us. I look forward to that blog post.

Sé:
“Sé says all the things.” Thank you so much for having me, y’all.