Matt Mullenweg, a founder of WordPress, recently called me a “WordPresser” in his blog post. I took offense to being called a WordPresser. I am so much more than a WordPresser!
But… WordPress kickstarted my career and I probably spent more time looking at WordPress code than I have reading any other single text. 😬
So, I am a WordPresser.
And as a WordPresser, I’ll probably model the rollout of plato, my agentic classroom platform, on the evolution of WordPress.
plato will start supporting single agentic classrooms with minimal out-of-the-box customization, as WordPress started as a platform for single blogs. I’ll present our successes at global conferences – we already have hundreds of students signed up with AI Leaders!. We’ll scale to support institutions. Then…?
Every student learns in their own way. Teachers must be able to easily monitor and set goals for students’ self-guided learning.
plato will empower learning, just as WordPress democratized website publishing for everyone.
PS: I can’t end without posting a picture of my night with Matt:
We were at Snug Harbor watching Jason Marsalis. Matt was into a pop song Jason covered, while I dug a wild angry beat Jason said was addressed to executives who want to save the world. Great jazz jumps between complex rage and pop-simple perfection — dynamic, alive, whole.
With my work, I hope to reach that wholeness — what Plato called Eudaimonia.
Intellectually, I would like to live as a monk and just do for others. But I can’t. My ego, society, and family get in the way of becoming the philosopher-monk I aspire to be. And I’m glad they do. Intellect is a limited tool. If I actually want to realize the eudaimonia Plato wrote about — if I actually want to be whole and true — I have to allow complexity as well as pop perfection. Life is dynamic.
“May the road rise to meet you,” goes an old Celtic send-off.
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