Matt Mullenweg gets named as one of the 30 Under 30 in the last Forbes and yet he was, originally, only half of the picture when WordPress was just a concept and idea. Mike Little, on the other hand, has not gotten nearly the same amount of press.
According to his own bio he now maintains around 40 or so WordPress sites and continues to do development in a small boutique firm, Zed1:
In 2003 he helped Matt Mullenweg start a little project which became known as WordPress. They initially worked together with an ever-growing band of volunteer developers to build and improve the software. Development of WordPress is now managed by Automattic Inc, though it still has many volunteer contributors.
Why shy away from the spotlight when he could have all the public kudos as Matt? In a great interview by Prolific North we get a glimpse of the shift and his decision-making of why he took a road less traveled:
After his initial involvement at WordPress, Little “drifted away” from WordPress in 2005 when he no longer had the time to give on a voluntary basis.
Little humbly accepts the part that Mullenweg has played. “He is a clever guy and very single-minded, and WordPress would not be what it is without him. He does upset people sometimes but I still 100% believe in what he does. He would love to get to the situation where everyone used the platform but nobody knew what WordPress was.”
“I’m a classic geek,” he added. “I don’t make a big play of it – a number of friends of mine tear their hair out because I don’t. I do make people more aware now, but I’m not really the type of person to do that. It’s taken a while to put myself forward.”
Incredible and many people would have loved to have that beginning and the ending result as Matt has experienced. Instead, due to time constraints and other interests, Mike decided to take another route.
It’s an incredible story and one that plays itself out more than we’d care to admit – and that’s a good thing. There are people who build because they want to build, not just because they want to profit. This isn’t to say that Matt was driven by profit either, by the way. It is just goes to show that we, as builders, simply build.
Thanks Mike for your contributions (he recently contributed to 3.5) and we appreciate all you’ve done. Read the entire article in full here.
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