Awkward Q&A at WordCamp Asia 2025: Matt Mullenweg Struggles to Answer Questions
An Unflattering View of the Success of the WordPress Gutenberg Project
At WordCamp Asia 2025, Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic, faced an awkward Q&A session where he struggled to answer questions about the future of WordPress. One of the most notable moments was when a user asked for advice on how to convince small business owners to use WordPress, despite the fact that the Gutenberg block editor was supposed to make it easier for non-coders to use the platform. This raised concerns about the success of the Gutenberg project.
Project Gutenberg: A Reimagining of How WordPress Users Can Build Websites
Gutenberg is a four-phase project aimed at reimagining how users can build websites without knowing any code. The project is currently in phase three, with the goal of providing a more visual interface for building web pages. However, the project has not been well-received by the WordPress developer community or regular users, despite having over 85.9 million installations of the Gutenberg WordPress editor.
The Four Phases of Gutenberg
- Phase 1: Easier Editing
- Phase 2: Customization
- Phase 3: Collaborative Editing
- Phase 4: Multilingual Support
Where Will WordPress Be in Five Years?
When a user asked Matt Mullenweg where he saw WordPress being in five years, he was caught off guard and struggled to answer. He even turned to Matías Ventura, the Lead Architect of Gutenberg, for help, but he was also unable to provide a clear answer. Matías Ventura’s response was that “hopefully, we’ll be done by then” and that “we’ll need to adapt, we’ll need to change.”
The Biggest Challenges WordPress Will Face in the Next Five Years
The Q&A session highlighted several challenges that WordPress will face in the next five years, including the need to adapt to change. As Matt Mullenweg pointed out, “it’s not the fittest of the species that survives, it’s the one that’s most adaptable to change.” The session also exposed cracks in the community, with users expressing frustration with the current state of WordPress and the difficulty of convincing others to use it.
Conclusion
The Q&A session at WordCamp Asia 2025 showed that even the most popular platforms can struggle with uncertainty and change. As WordPress faces the challenges of the next five years, it will be important for the community to come together to adapt and evolve. By doing so, WordPress can continue to thrive and remain a dominant force in the world of content management systems.