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cover art for Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg on open-sourcing social media

How to be a CEO

Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg on open-sourcing social media

Season 1, Ep. 74

After taking WordPress from a small blogging site in the 2000s to an all-in-one website creation platform, which is now the backbone of around a third of all websites, Matt Mullenweg has now set his sights on social media. Now as CEO of Tumblr, Matt reveals his plans to revamp the site, welcome disillusioned ex-Twitter and Reddit users, and create a social site that is, at its core, open-source. In this episode:


  • Matt’s battleplan for making Tumblr better
  • How social media sites copy features from competitors
  • Where Matt got his nickname as ‘the blog prince’
  • How Wordpress took on tech giants like Microsoft, Google & AOL
  • Making Tumblr’s algorithm open-source
  • How AI will play a role in improving Tumblr
  • Is generative AI a concern?
  • Can social media actually help people connect?


For more news, interviews and analysis go to standard.co.uk/business.



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