I'm not sure why ma.tt didn't hyperlink the word Automattic in his post, but he should have, for people who don't know what the company is:<p><a href="http://automattic.com" rel="nofollow">http://automattic.com</a>
I just spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out what Automattic is and does. I gather they are in some way connected to wordpress, but beyond that I am baffled.
I know that Wordpress as a platform touches a ton of people, but I'm curious to see what sort of revenue Automattic must be doing on the paid side to justify a $1B+ valuation.<p>I guess it's possible this has little to do with the company's earning potential, and everything to do with reach and influence.
<i>It was also only a year ago I said “Automattic is healthy, generating cash, and already growing as fast as it can so there’s no need for the company to raise money directly — we’re not capital constrained.”</i><p><i>I was wrong, but I didn’t realize it until I took on the CEO role in January.</i><p>Find this to be really odd.<p>And it leads into this, which is at odds with the previous statement that they were growing as fast as they can. Did they discover any new avenues for growth that required a whole new raft of capital?<p><i>..and we realized we could invest more into WordPress and our products to grow faster</i><p>I love the company and Matt. Met him briefly in India many moons ago when he was attending a Wordcamp here.
It'd be nice if they poured even a few million of this new cash haul into their IntenseDebate blogging-comments service. That, or shut it down since support there is non-responsive.