No full-fledged edition this week—I’m taking a few days off, at least other than this note—but I do have an update on Life Stuff! Specifically, Work Life Stuff: Starting next week, I’ll be joining the company Automattic as their head of publishing.
You may know Automattic for being the parent company of WordPress, which happens to power the only two websites I’ve ever built myself, but it also counts among its businesses The Atavist and Longreads, two sterling publications I’ve long admired. (Coincidentally enough, just last week Automattic acquired Pocket Casts, my favorite podcast app.) I’ll be working with those teams, as well as a number of initiatives that are just starting to take shape. What everything has in common is Automattic’s longstanding commitment to the open web—an increasingly necessary antidote to the walled gardens and data-hoovering business models that have come to dominate so much of social media and even journalism. There’s a lot of soothsaying these days about the future of media, as well as the so-called Creator Economy; I’m excited to start digging into those questions in an entirely new way.
What does that mean for The Peter Principle? Likely nothing. Automattic has a refreshingly open approach to what its employees do outside of work. That said, the way you get this newsletter—it’s currently powered by Substack—may change. Or it may not! What matters is that if something does change, it won’t be anything that requires any work on your part. (Though I’ll explain any changes thoroughly, as well as why I’m making them.)
So. That’s it. Have a great week—I’ll talk to you next Wednesday!
Congrats!