Hey, welcome back to Community & Code.
My name is Chris Reynolds.
You know that thing where you're in the
back of an Uber,
half checked out after a long conference,
and a fully formed idea just smacks you
upside the head?
For my guest this week,
that Uber ride out of a WordCamp US
became a weekly podcast with over a
hundred episodes.
Bud Krause has been in the WordPress
community since two thousand nine,
teaching code in New York City classrooms
and writing the educational stuff that a
whole generation of us probably learned
from.
These days, he's hosting Seriously Bud,
a show about everything in a WordPresser's
life, except WordPress.
We got into a lot how Star Trek
is responsible for his love of technology,
why he's convinced airports will one day
be teleports,
whether AI is making him dumber, smarter,
or both simultaneously,
and a genuinely great riff on why
WordPress people feel like they own
WordPress in a way that doesn't quite
happen anywhere else.
There's also some real talk about where he
thinks WordPress has lost its way with the
block editor and the fact that Elementor
is eating a third of the web.
Join me on this hangout with Bud.
Let's get into it.
Welcome to Community and Code,
the podcast where we talk to the human
beings behind the commits.
And today I am here with Bud Krause,
who has been in the WordPress community
for, I don't know,
a really long time as an educator,
as a podcaster, as just, I don't know,
everyone's grandpa, I guess, or something.
Stop right there.
Come on.
Cut that out.
Stop.
Come on.
Why don't you tell everyone?
Hold on.
You know,
every time I go to a word camp,
you know, they say to me,
they come up with, how old are you?
And I go like, what,
what is an age restriction here?
Does an age limit there?
It's like the height.
It's the height.
You need to be this tall to enter
this.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, whatever.
As I once said to Matt Mullenweg,
I said, you know, uh,
i think i'm the oldest person in wordpress
and he said to me well how old
are you and i told him and he
said well you're not the oldest but you're
getting there well i mean we're all
getting there like uh that is true
wordpress is legally able to drink at this
point yeah and and then some and i
mean what's there are some of us who
have been there from from the beginning or
very close to the beginning uh i have
noticed i'm not the only one getting older
in wordpress
Yeah, for sure.
But Bud,
why don't you tell anybody who's listening
who might not already know you what it
is that you do?
Well,
I'd like to say that I'm a content
creative.
That is,
I create WordPress content for WordPress
businesses.
So I get hired to
write articles educational material of
course that's kind of dwindling now with
ai that is you know i don't think
there's a big future in it unfortunately
because i love to write uh and write
technical stuff but like i said like i
don't know um but i do spend more
time these days with the podcast called
seriously bud and uh it's where i have
you've been on it and i've been on
it recently and um
It's an unexpected conversation with
someone in the WordPress community.
So every Friday at eight a.m.
Eastern Daylight Time,
I drop an episode and it's not your
typical WordPress podcast shop talk kind
of thing.
In fact,
I stay away from all that as much
as I can and just talk about your
life, who you are,
who your partner might be, children,
family, what you like to do, you know,
everything that's not WordPress.
Now,
some people that's kind of hard to do
and some people it's pretty easy to do.
So I'm always looking for the unusual,
interesting, super interesting stories.
I say that because everybody does have a
really good story.
As I think people know,
it's just a matter of getting people,
giving them the opportunity to say it,
which I think the podcast does.
Yeah, I mean,
as somebody who has done lots of talks
at events and somebody who does lots of
virtual events and things like that and
has also talked to other people who also
have done talks at events like
The thing that separates somebody from
being a speaker in whatever definition of
the word that you want to give it
and somebody who does not identify as that
is just feeling like the story that you
do have or the stories that you have
are worth telling.
It's just a feeling.
That's the only difference.
You know, that is true.
And, you know,
I think it's sometimes I think it's kind
of audacious of me in some ways to
even have a podcast like I have.
But I do like stories.
I like to tell stories.
I've always been that way.
And I'm going to give you an exclusive
here, Chris.
No one has ever heard this.
Okay.
So when I think about this a lot,
when I was, I don't know,
I had a guy my age come up
to me and say, you know, Krauss,
one day you're going to be really good
at storytelling.
You're going to love stories and all that
stuff.
And, you know,
Barrington Weinberg was a hundred percent
right.
So, yeah, you know, I,
and I remember him saying that I just
took note of it,
but I really didn't think much of it
and turned out to be true.
Yeah.
Well, and, and like,
don't know uh my dad once upon a
time was uh planning on going into like
uh broadcasting like we wanted to be a
dj on the radio and that never actually
panned out but he did always he was
always sort of like a communicator and
ultimately like got into human resources
which is also about communication and so
like i think that like you know for
me i think that that definitely like
played a role in how I view the
world and, and,
and maybe added to a little bit of
comfort around talking in front of people.
I was involved in theater and stuff like
that.
Like, you know, like, but like,
none of that is a prerequisite.
And I've talked to people on the podcast
before that are like, you know,
they felt like they wanted to start
presenting things because it would benefit
their career and whatever, you know,
whatever context and,
and they did it and ended up like,
even though it was like against the,
against type.
They were doing it because they felt like
they had to,
and they were doing it because it would
be good for them,
but they didn't really want to do it.
But then once they did do it a
couple times,
they really got hooked on it.
And I think that it really is just
that getting over the hump.
Well, you know, it turns out, you know,
when I was a little kid and still
to this day, or no, not as much,
I always listened to talk radio.
And now this goes way back.
So I was very interested in human
conversation from the beginning of time.
And in fact,
I sort of fall asleep to people every
night listening to the radio of just
people talking.
um but you know i i and then
as i got older i sort of wished
i had um the opportunity to be a
host on a talk show i think i
would have been good uh and it well
the podcast sort of serves that
That need, you know,
I was just going to say, like, talk.
I was I was about to say talk
radio doesn't exist anymore.
Right.
But like it does.
That's what podcasts are like.
It's literally it's literally what
podcasts are.
And and I, you know, I don't know,
maybe five years ago, like.
me i don't know that we were talking
about podcasts as much they sort of kind
of like had a wave and the wave
was kind of declining but then like now
it's like a huge deal again and there's
it's like i think there is this need
to like feel connection to other humans
and having voices in your ears is a
really intimate way of of having that sort
of connection oh absolutely uh
As for podcasts,
they've been around for a long time,
but it's only in the last,
like you say, five, six,
seven years that everybody and their
mother now has a podcast because they
realized there's a very low barrier to
entry.
It doesn't cost anything,
and everybody can do it.
Not necessarily well, but they can do it.
I mean the technology is getting easier.
The technology that you can use to make
a podcast is getting so much easier and
more prevalent to use and cheaper.
Yeah, for sure.
When are you going to ask me this
question about when I got into tech?
Well, I was getting to that,
but I'm actually like – I'm sorry.
I like this path, Ron,
because I'm actually interested in when
you decided to get into podcasting.
So it was not what I was expecting
to do by far because go ask Bob
Dunn.
I used to ask,
tell him a thousand times, Bob,
why would anybody do a podcast?
This is the most ridiculous thing that
you're doing.
I mean, you know, this was,
I don't know, eight, nine years ago,
you know,
I was kidding him all the time.
What are you doing this for?
And then, uh, WordCamp US, Washington, DC,
I was leaving and I was in an
Uber.
And then all of a sudden,
like a bolt of lightning,
I swear to God,
I got hit by this thing.
And I'll never forget it, obviously.
And I said, you know,
I wish I could just spend more time
with Chris Reynolds, okay, or anybody.
You name it.
Marcus Burnett, whatever.
The name.
I said,
just because I love talking to the people
and I don't really spend enough time with
them because it's just rush, rush.
And at that moment, I said, hey,
I could do a podcast where I have
a conversation with people like that.
And so everything, even the music,
my daughter introducing me,
the whole thing was born in one second.
The only thing that wasn't born was the
name.
And that came from my designer.
She came up, Jackie Goldstein.
I'll give her a shout out.
She's my designer.
And she came up.
with the idea of seriously but it was
just whether it was gonna be serious how
you're gonna say it you know and we
said as a question and that and then
I think you know we decided right away
everybody would say it during the show and
the whole thing was just very easy to
I never struggled with an idea of what
the show anything it just came you know
and then
you know, uh,
one thing led to the next.
Now, initially I thought like, well,
I would just interview my friends.
Okay.
Then I would interview people that I sort
of know.
Okay.
And then eventually I'd interview people
that I didn't know at all.
And I've done all of that, you know,
and, uh,
people from around the world.
It's really been,
it's an honor really to do this.
And I will say, looking back now,
I think another thing that kind of was
the impetus was in twenty seven, eighteen,
I took a trip around the United States
on Amtrak and I went all the way
around, took me nineteen days.
I did stop.
I mean,
I didn't can't be on a train for
nineteen days.
You know, you have to take a shower,
you know.
So I would stop along the way,
Chicago and Austin and whatever.
But I did make a circle all the
way around.
And in that experience,
I had time to talk to people on
the train.
And I found myself asking like a million
questions.
Well, what was your mother like, you know,
or do you like fried chicken or what?
And so without knowing at the time that
I was starting to develop the skills,
that would be the show, you know, uh,
I sort of was without knowing it.
So it's kind of interesting.
Yeah.
Well, and you've been,
you've been running seriously,
but for quite a while,
you've got over a hundred episodes now.
What are you at?
No,
a hundred and ten is going to be.
Yeah.
This Friday.
So, you know, yeah.
And there is no shortage of amazing people
to interview.
That's the one thing you can count on.
The supply is there.
The inventory, my friend, is there.
We have lots and lots of people.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I always say that, like,
you know,
having this podcast is just an excuse to
talk to people that are cool.
That's pretty much the barrier.
What am I doing?
What am I doing here?
But, you know, the, uh, uh, yeah.
And, um,
it's uh whatever the next question well
okay so we'll go back uh where what
did lead to your interest in tech in
general like where did that come from yeah
it's easy star trek and i'm talking the
original i so i'm taking the original oh
yeah the classic yeah yes you know
and uh you know with bones and doctor
and spock and james t kirk and yep
that is when i started to realize you
know i like the science fiction stuff and
uh yeah and i never stopped liking it
you know um so that's when i started
to realize it but
I, you know,
I don't look at myself really as a
techie person per se, but, you know,
my friends and a lot of people say,
what are you talking about, you know,
and compared to them.
I am.
But I just think that I just,
I'm not really,
I like to use technology and I like
to see it work.
Too often it doesn't, but that's it.
I don't really have, you know, it's like,
I like to use the air dryer or
the air, what is that air dryer?
What do they call it?
It's, let's say a microwave.
Okay.
But I don't need to know how the
microwave works.
I don't really care.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
I mean,
that's not to say I'm never interested in
code,
but I'm just not interested as much
anymore.
We have AI,
we have all these things now, you know,
you don't need to see how the sausage
is made.
I do sometimes take a look and I
have to see,
but I'm not one of these guys that
just, that doesn't really,
that never really turned me on.
However,
I taught code forever in New York City,
and I did like it.
And it was also my first experience on
a continual basis to get up in front
of people and talk.
And what I learned, excuse me,
cut that out.
So what I learned is that
if you did it the right way,
sort of like a mixture of entertainment
and education,
they will listen to you and you can
talk about anything.
It doesn't matter.
You have their attention.
And my wife used to say, well,
how was class today?
And I'd say, well, it was really good.
And she knew when I said that it
meant that they laughed at all the jokes
because I didn't go by like whether they
learned anything.
Okay.
I just was like,
wanted to entertain them and just have
fun.
So, but I did, I didn't want to,
you know, obviously they had to learn.
So I was teaching them HTML and CSS
and Dreamweaver and WordPress,
little JavaScript in there, but, you know,
and it was fun.
And then I created online courses and all
that.
So back in the day when you had
to know code, it was fun.
And then
WordPress came along and destroyed all of
that.
That's not true, obviously.
Yeah, go ahead.
I know what you're asking.
How did I get to WordPress?
Yeah,
what is the thing that steered you towards
WordPress in the beginning?
Another memorable moment in my life,
I was having lunch at the Oyster Bar
at Grand Central in New York City.
Very nice, fancy kind of place.
Business people go and stuff.
So I was there with a client friend
Uh, and he said,
and he was always like six months to
a year ahead of me, you know,
in thinking about what's,
what's out there and a little older than
me.
And he would say it was very successful
financier and, uh,
store owner and all that and great guy.
And he said to me, you know,
you want to learn WordPress?
And I said, oh, come on.
I said,
I'm a rage against the machine kind of
guy.
I don't want to learn that WordPress junk.
And he said, no, pay attention, bud.
You really want to learn this.
Here,
I'll give you my username and password.
Log into my site and take a look.
And I did.
And I saw this
thing called the Ozzy like drop down menu
or something at the,
I forget what it was called.
They had all kinds of like very primitive
stuff compared to today.
Right.
Uh, subscribe to for email.
And I mean, it was just really primitive,
but I didn't know at the time it
wasn't primitive.
And I started to figure out what are
plugins, what are themes.
And then a certain period of time passed
and I saw there was this,
theme called thesis.
I think it was called thesis.
Maybe it was called thematic.
No, there was thesis,
but there was a theme called thematic,
which taught you how to create a child
theme.
And once I put that together and figured
out how that works and saw like, oh,
wow, you can make a template.
You could do this.
I said, oh, this is mine.
Because there comes a point for people
that get hooked on this thing that
WordPress is theirs.
in the sense that you could do whatever
you want to do with this.
And that's really cool, you know,
and that's, and then once I learned that,
the first thing I thought like, oh,
I could teach this.
And I did.
And at that time, you know, in,
there were so many people that were,
they were lining up outside the door to
learn WordPress.
I mean, you know,
the market was ripe and people were from
all over New York.
They wanted to,
come and take the class and learn
WordPress.
So that was a lot of fun.
Now, you know, good luck.
I mean, you know, it's funny.
I just want to say real quick,
I am now involved in the WP credits
program where, you know,
people from all over the world, you know,
they,
they sign up to learn WordPress through
their academic institution.
And then they get assigned a monitor,
a mentor like me to help them learn
WordPress.
So I'm still doing it,
but in a different way.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a really cool thing.
Your comment about the discovery that
WordPress is theirs...
struck me because i was thinking about the
the difference between um wordpress and
drupal because obviously i'm kind of in
both worlds because my employer pantheon
does both things and i've been like trying
to like you know i've been i've i've
put my foot in into the drupal world
a little bit a couple times gone to
like a drupal con and drupal camp and
things like that um and and i i
feel like i feel like the that
That sense of ownership is maybe not as
present for people who work with Drupal
because there's so much more configuration
necessary.
So like in Drupal,
there is this concept of,
and I've said this a bunch of times,
but there's a whole class of professionals
in the Drupal ecosystem who are doing
essentially like they're maintainers of
the site.
So that just from a configuration level,
like they're the ones that like click the
buttons and do the config and like go
to all the admin screens and get
everything set up.
So the people who use the site can
just use the site, do the stuff,
edit the content, whatever.
They don't need to worry about like
creating the content types or anything
like that.
Right.
And in WordPress, we don't really like,
there are people that kind of sort of
do that,
that are just like the web admin.
But for the most part,
that doesn't really exist,
not at the same scale.
And the reason why is because the admin
is not that difficult like anybody.
I mean,
it's only difficult when you add more
stuff and you make it complicated.
Right.
But like at its base,
it's it's pretty easy to understand.
And I think that like.
Yeah, that thing there of ownership.
I think that you wouldn't feel that level
of ownership if you weren't the ones that
are clicking all the buttons and ticking
all the boxes, right?
I agree.
Yeah,
that's just a really interesting thing.
I hadn't articulated that that is the
distinction or a distinction between
WordPress and Drupal,
but I do think that maybe that is
a factor.
Maybe it's one of the reasons why it
has been so successful is that people feel
an ownership,
a very visceral connection to it.
And, you know, because as you say,
it's simplest,
it's pages and posts and media and a
bunch of links and navigation.
And then you get this feeling of like
mastery.
You know,
when I created that child theme and it
worked, it was like, oh my Lord,
my head exploded because I just said, oh,
I can just do this.
Everything.
And then three years later,
I figured out what a functions file was
for.
But that's another story.
But, you know, yeah.
Boy,
remember back in the old days when we
used to bring in style sheets with the
add import statement and all that?
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that's another story.
Wait a minute.
This is a coding show, right?
We can talk about code.
Yeah.
All right.
um we talked about uh you mentioned that
um you you your interest in technology
came from star trek yeah i feel like
i and i i mean i was raised
on the original star trek so like that
that no you were yes i was i
mean reruns i'm not from like yeah yeah
yeah okay um okay
and uh and so like i there's just
there's so much from that era of science
fiction that is kind of no longer fiction
right like well well said and i'll tell
you here's a case in point go watch
one of those next gen episodes when it's
a little closer to home and they've got
ipads they've got you know this they've
got that you know and it's like
Oh, my Lord.
Now,
I think Steve Jobs noted that he was
so influenced by those shows that he said,
I want one of those.
So I don't think that's... Now,
here's my thing, okay?
Talking about technology.
And here's my big thing is...
I won't live long enough,
but those teletransporters, oh my Lord,
I want one of those so bad.
So here's my future.
I'll give you a little glimpse.
I'm like Jules Verne.
Come back in a hundred years and see
if I was right.
There won't be any more airplanes,
but there will be airports or teleports
that you go to where it used to
be airports.
And you put yourself in one of those
pods at what was once an airport and
you press in a bunch of buttons and
you end up in like a minute later
in Paris.
And you'll end up in the DeGaulle airport
teleport in Paris.
Now,
I know everybody says it's impossible and
you can't do it.
I've heard all the...
I've asked AI how to build it.
AI says it can't be done.
Not yet,
but there's a path to doing this.
But I mean, I won't see it,
but boy,
do I wish I could see something like
that because I think that just...
Beyond amazing to me.
Magic.
I think it'll happen.
I mean, what is it?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is
equivalent to magic?
I mean, that is...
Well, the only thing is, now,
you'll have to make sure that there aren't
any flies that get into the teleport.
Yes, right, yes.
Keep out a fly.
We've seen what happens when a fly gets...
Don't try this with a cat because that's,
you know,
the first version of the fly was with
Dandolo, the cat,
and the cat just disappeared.
Yeah.
so but uh yeah so they'll try it
with some but i could see can you
imagine i mean shipping stuff with the
teleporter right yeah i mean so maybe
maybe we don't do people maybe we just
do objects you know but i mean like
and in so many ways technology is
influenced by commerce and capitalism and
whatever there's no if there's no other
reason to invest in a technology that
could
transport people or objects across vast
differences for like distances for less
money or less time uh then yes commerce
and shipping containers and things uh is
is would would be a huge uh market
when i when i hear all those people
tell me that it's impossible to go yeah
it's impossible to fly over the ocean too
i mean it was impossible until it was
done right
So don't tell me it's impossible.
If the human brain can think of it,
there's a, there's possible,
we're probably going to get there.
And obviously, you know,
now I would recommend though that we
don't,
it's like codecs, right?
Compression, decompression,
that kind of thing.
So we don't decompress somebody.
I was going to say,
you can't do this and then send their
little digital bits over the internet.
That's not a good idea.
Yeah, packet switching.
Well, you see, it sounds crazy, right?
Can't packet switching be one of the core
concepts of
this idea of teleporting,
I would think it will be.
So it's so cool.
There's so many little things that you
could start to see.
Like, I think this could be, you know,
that you could see sort of like,
you know,
these technologies are all put together,
right?
You know,
a new technology is born from old
technology or technologies.
I think it's really amazing.
Are there things that you use or take
for granted now that you can link back
in your mind to science fiction that you
sort of grew up in?
Because I was just thinking,
I've got an Apple Watch, right?
And talking into a watch that is smart,
that can do stuff,
that can send messages across distances,
that can give me... I mean,
Siri is yelling at me now.
like you know like that was a thing
like I I can I can literally see
on in my head like memories of like
seeing this on in Star Trek and other
sort of like in like get get smart
get smart yes get smart that's like like
all these things where it was like like
or like the Jetsons or things like you
know like this is the wild imaginings of
like some crazy far future but like no
it's like stuff that we have in our
hand yeah
You want me to name something?
Yeah, what is that?
What things do you think about when you
think about the sort of things that are
normal now?
A refrigerator.
No, I'm just kidding.
I say that in kidding, but my parents,
they didn't have initially a refrigerator.
They had a guy deliver an ice block,
and that's how they refrigerated.
Eventually, they had refrigerators, but...
Well,
the first real kind of technology that I
was exposed to as a little kid was
color TV.
So I remember an era, very vaguely,
where we just had black and white TV.
And then they introduced color TV with the
idea that men would want to buy this
so they could watch TV.
football every Sunday in color.
Do you know that's how color TV took
off?
That was the gimmick that made it popular?
I did not know that it was football.
I'm not super shocked.
You don't know enough old people.
Yes.
But it was true.
The whole...
machine behind color TV.
I mean,
the marketing and everything was geared to
the NFL broadcasting Sunday games in color
and guys had to have it in color.
And away we went.
So I, you know,
I remember a little bit of that,
you know, uh, NBC used to have a,
a peacock that the feathers moved,
the animated feathers.
And they would say, uh,
something like we're now broadcasting all
of our stuff in color in full color.
Um,
So yeah, I remember all that stuff.
And now I know that you mentioned a
couple of times using AI and I know
that you use that.
You mean it's a passing fad, AI,
let's face it.
Is it?
I mean, tell me.
How do you see AI in the world
that we are working in and how do
you use it in sort of your work
and your life?
I'm going to give you the best answer
I can give you is how do I
see it?
I can't tell you.
I mean, I just don't know.
I'm just not that smart to know.
I should ask AI.
In many ways,
I think it's making me dumber.
I don't think there's any question about
that, but it's also making me smarter.
And they talk about de-skilling,
and I like to think of it as
re-skilling, you know,
I think I might have.
Anyway,
so it's enabled me to do things that
I could not possibly do until it was,
you know, until it's here.
But there's no way to know.
Anybody, you know,
can't know where all this is going.
I do think sort of what, you know,
what I can see and maybe I think
the next phase in the next couple of
years will be total agentic A.I.,
So that instead of it telling you how
to fix something, it will just do it.
So it'll say,
here are the instructions to do this.
Click on this and click on that.
You'll just go, no, do it.
Whatever it is.
Some app, something in a browser,
something in your operating system.
These will just do it.
Or you won't even have to ask it.
It'll just do it on its own,
which is maybe not.
Who knows?
But I could definitely see we're moving
from an era from informational to
you know, some kind of,
it does it by itself.
It does it if you ask it to
do, which will be really cool.
I think, I mean, you know,
there's so many things now, you know,
it's what I kind of see is like,
there's a lot of companies sticking AI
into their products and services.
And I literally mean sticking it in
because you don't need it.
Like you'd AI into whatever,
but some things are so like whisper flow.
Okay.
Is like,
you're not really cognizant of the AI in
it.
It's there.
And I think it's really cool.
I like sort of that, uh,
invisible nature of it.
It's like anything else it's there and
we're using it,
but I don't need to know.
Yeah.
You know?
So yeah, it's, it's a very,
very interesting, fast paced,
fast moving time we're living in.
And, um,
I think that the rate of change that
we've experienced is particularly in the
last twenty five years is really one of
the causes of our so many disruptions in
our society.
People just can't adopt and adjust to
these changes that fast.
And we're having problems.
Yeah.
I mean,
I think that even even talking about like
like we're.
The the world has not fully.
recovered from
Fax machines.
Well, that,
but I was going to say the internet,
like, I think that like, you know,
like the internet is still pretty young,
especially if you're talking about like
technology and like advancements and on a
scale.
And now we're like,
like AI is just sort of like just
a hyper, hyper, whatever, you know,
it makes it even faster.
And I agree.
Like, I think that there's like,
it's super wild Westie.
Um,
and we don't know what we don't know.
Um,
And, you know, I don't know about you.
I'm sure this has probably happened to
you,
but that I've looked at something online
and wasn't quite sure if it was or
not AI.
And it bothers me that I don't know.
It really does.
I should know.
Yeah.
Maybe there should be a disclaimer.
Maybe there should be.
I don't like it, you know,
especially if it's something that's,
you know, influencing a decision.
I need to know if this is real
or not.
Yeah.
And maybe AI is what's real.
Do you feel like you have an AI?
I'm not going anywhere.
I just dropped something.
Do you feel like you have an AI,
Dar?
Do you feel like you can see AI,
like if you're reading a blog post or
something,
and it doesn't say that it's written by
AI or written with the assistance of AI,
do you feel like you can pick up
on the cues in the writing or in
videos or anything like that?
Mm-mm.
I don't think so.
I don't have like AI radar, you know,
where I can tell.
I do not think so.
And I also think most people don't either.
Yeah.
Because it's just, you know, I mean,
if you take any article and you stick
it in,
copy and paste it into chat GPT and
say, what percentage,
what's the likelihood that this is written
by AI?
You almost always get the same result.
You'll see the answer.
Well, some of it was, you know,
here are the telltale...
I don't think AI knows if it's AI
anymore.
So yeah,
there's a lot of very serious challenges
that it presents and serious
opportunities.
Yeah, it's just really,
I don't know if human beings are ready
to handle this stuff.
I don't know.
yeah i mean i i there's just a
lot there's a lot there's a lot going
on uh there's a lot that people there's
a lot of disruption there's a lot of
anxiety uh about like what does it all
mean yeah i feel like we're feeling that
in particular like in like our sort of
web development sort of communities uh is
it's a it's a huge point of anxiety
Um, because like, if, if,
if a robot can do my job faster
than I can, what, what does that,
where does that leave me?
I don't know.
I mean, you know, I've mentioned like,
you know,
writing and stuff is really diminishing.
I,
I think you sort of need to figure
out a way to, as always reinvent yourself,
figure out how to use the technology in
a way that
it can't do it for you.
And what that really means,
as far as I can tell,
is bring your authentic self to whatever
you do,
because AI can't do that for you.
So seriously, Bud,
as a very authentic brand, you know, me,
that AI cannot yet reproduce,
and I don't want it to.
And that is, you know, AI...
Yes, it can do conversations and all that,
but it can't do the kind of conversations
that I do.
I mean, it probably can,
but it can't do it the way I
do it.
And if I have any value,
that's what I can do.
Right.
Yeah.
Because the show has developed a unique...
style, brand.
I'm aware of that.
You know, I know what it is.
And I knew when I started it,
all you have to do is just be
yourself and hopefully somebody will
listen to it.
And if not, you know,
but I couldn't be anybody else.
So who else was I going to be?
So, yeah.
So the, I mean,
the idea to me is to
is to bring some authenticity,
some humanness to whatever it is that
you're creating that AI cannot do.
Whatever that means.
do you get excited about uh or uh
about what uh things are coming uh on
the horizon or like the the development of
of wordpress in particular like does no
you don't get excited about that no i
don't unfortunately i used to okay yeah
i'm very disappointed and i hate to say
this with the direction that wordpress has
gone in i have tried so much to
love full site editing and blocks and
don't get me wrong.
I do like a lot of it,
but man,
there's a lot of stuff in it that
is just really sucky.
And I'll give you a case in point.
Okay.
I'm doing something now,
something very simple for the navigation.
I want to create like a label.
All right.
So not a link,
but just like a little piece of text
that says something and then a dropdown
off of that.
Good luck.
I'm using a twenty twenty five.
And it has been torture.
I have used AI.
I've done this.
I've done that.
JavaScript, blah, blah, blah.
Come on now.
You know,
for a time immemorial when we had classic
themes, this was the easiest thing.
You create a custom link.
You put a hashtag in.
You take the hashtag out.
I mean, and now I can't.
See,
if you can do something from the past
and you can't do it easily in the
future, like, or...
That is a bad situation.
And yeah,
so I see things in the current version
of WordPress that is...
I think in many ways,
WordPress has lost its way.
And I don't like to say that,
you know,
because I know there are so many smart
people that work on the project.
I don't.
So I don't like to, I mean,
you don't want me to.
So it's easy to sit back and criticize.
I understand that.
But, you know,
this is a project that I love and
I just hate to see, you know, hey,
is it any wonder that,
that Elementor now accounts for a third of
all websites, WordPress sites, I guess,
using Elementor.
Yeah.
I don't know how they include that into
their, you know,
their self-hosted Elementor.
I don't think they do.
Hmm.
And having said that,
Elementor just laid off a third of its
three hundred people staff.
Right.
But the point is that's another.
But a third of all WordPress sites use
Elementor.
What does that tell you?
Yeah.
No,
I did a live stream with Miriam and
miriam who no miriam schwab uh and uh
i can't remember who doesn't know miriam
yeah i can't remember who who who they're
uh the name of their their the tech
guy now he's escaping my brain because i'm
bad with names but uh anyway i had
i did live stream with them about angie
a couple months ago uh which is their
ai thing and they said something about
like yeah elementor powers uh thirty three
percent of all wordpress sites and i'm
like that can't be right and she's like
yeah two million sites just throw two
million sites it's like a number that's
like
wait what that's got you got to be
kidding me that is ins that is insane
and like especially when a short period of
time ago it was ten percent right yeah
yeah and and i i i think that
you're right i think that like obviously i
mean they have an incredibly talented team
and they've done and and one of the
things that that miriam said um when i
had her on uh maybe it was on
this show um was that like she felt
like you know they they kind of caught
lightning in a bottle
um and they just like rode they just
rode a wave and it was just sort
of like serendipitous but i do think that
it see says something about what people
are are looking for and needing if there
is one particular product that is
dominating that much to that extent like
there's obviously some there's the they're
there right they're doing they've got to
be doing something right and that is where
like if it was any other product in
in any other industry right
and there's this many people using this
one flavor of this product,
then the company that ran the product,
you know, owned that product,
would be like, oh,
we're going to put all of our ducks
in this basket,
all of our eggs in this basket,
because this is the one that people want.
And, like, focus on that.
But, like, because...
because they're a plugin because it's not
core because of whatever,
because WordPress is a project,
but it's not really managed like a product
because it's, it's open source.
Anybody can contribute,
which means that there's no product
roadmap.
There's no, you know, like,
like there's user testing,
but there's not like in the same sort
of like feedback and,
and consumer advisory boards and things
like that, you know, like there's no,
there's not as much opportunity for,
for direction.
Well, take, you know,
when the Gutenberg Project was first
announced years ago now, you know,
Matt said there'd be four stages, okay?
But
nowhere was there any,
there was no flexibility to say, you know,
stage three collaboration.
No, it's not going to work.
We're going to do something else.
You know, there's this thing called AI.
We're going to focus on, you know,
it was like,
we're going to just go down this path
no matter what.
That's ridiculous.
I mean, and we see that it's ridiculous.
But now going back to Elementor,
it's funny.
I saw it when it first came out.
And I was at a meetup in New
York City and somebody demonstrated it and
we all looked at each other like, wow,
what a game changer.
Of course,
you only had the classic editor then,
you know, there was no block editor.
And we just said, boy,
does this fill a need?
If they don't screw this up,
it's going to be huge.
And I told Miriam the story,
and she said, it's amazing.
And I saw it when it was two
hundred thousand downloads, you know,
and turned out, you know,
to be unbelievable.
And,
but they've also lost their way in a
little bit.
I think that they have strayed into things
that they probably should have stayed out
of.
But the other side of the coin is
a third of our WordPress sites use it.
And obviously it tells you there's
something wrong with the full site.
with the block editor if that happened.
I always thought it'd be,
in the early stages of the Gutenberg
project, I always thought, hey,
why don't they just buy Elementor and just
be done with it?
And who's to say there wasn't discussions
about that?
I don't know.
But yeah, it's a major, it's just,
It's, well,
you look at the block editor and you
look at Elementor and there's still such a
gap between the two of them.
Maybe bigger than ever, you know.
And I don't know how many folks in
the WordPress community know this little
factoid, but for a while,
for a decent amount of time,
the Drupal Association was looking at and
evaluating Gutenberg to be the editor of
choice in Drupal,
and they decided against it.
And instead, what they built,
I've seen demos,
it looks like all the things that full
site editing and Gutenberg should have
been but is not.
Like, yeah, they, they, they like, they,
they went, they were like, okay,
we're going to, but it came really,
really close.
And I know Matt was really pushing for
it and whatever.
They came really close to adopting
Gutenberg and then they,
they backed out and they said, so, so,
the end result is instead of using this
thing that exists,
that is built into WordPress and is,
I guess,
being built into Tumblr and whatever,
you know, as, as a,
like a de facto standard, they decided,
no,
we're going to write all of that ourselves
the way that we want to do it.
And, and from what I have seen, um,
they've done a better job of doing that
thing.
How about that?
You know,
because the initial vision was that,
you know,
the block editor would sort of become a
language that all these others, many,
many, you know, non like, you know,
let's say constant contact,
we use it or whatever,
any kind of publishing platform would use
it.
Yep.
And there's nowhere near it's,
that's not going to happen.
Yeah.
That is just not going to happen.
Uh, so it's been a, um,
A disappointment.
Let's just say that.
And I just,
as much as I got Dwight Paul for
it and wanted to be better, I just,
you know,
I think it's also a project that's just
really stuck.
It's sort of rudderless right now.
I mean, you know, when Seven-O came out,
the big thing was going to be real-time
collaboration and they couldn't ship it.
It tells you, you know,
that everything's not so good.
Yeah.
So what else can we talk about?
I'm sick of this stuff.
Well, I was going to say, like,
we're getting close to the end.
I was going to say, yeah, I mean,
it's it's we've we've blown through our
time.
And so I was going to give it
give you an opportunity to to tell anyone
who might be listening or watching this in
the future.
Where can they find you on the Internet?
No, no, no.
If you're doing this,
let's do this like seriously, Bud style.
You would say, so who do you recommend?
I'm going to take over my podcast now.
Yes.
So who do you recommend I have as
a future guest?
Who do you recommend that I have as
a future guest, Bud?
On code and community.
On community and code.
Community and code.
Well, you know, they always, you know,
my guests, well, who have you had?
Okay.
Who do you want?
Is there anybody you want?
I've actually got a list.
There's a bunch of people that I haven't
reached out to yet,
but I do have a list that is
growing.
Yeah, I know.
I have a list too.
Yeah, I get it.
All right,
so what was the real last question that
you asked?
The real last question was where can
people find you on the internet if they're
looking?
Yeah, if you're looking.
I have two sites.
One is seriouslybud.com.
What a surprise.
That's seriouslybud.com.
And I have all of my episodes archived
there so you can hear all,
including Chris's,
which is a good episode.
Good, not great.
I think so.
Good, not great.
And you could also sign up for my
newsletter there.
And you could even apply to be a
guest.
So I like that.
It's a fun kind of website,
and I'm making it funner.
And then the other site is joyofwp.com.
And that's my serious site in that that's
where I talk about the work that I
do as a as a content creative.
What I've done.
There's a whole list of all this kind
of stuff there.
And if you're interested in hiring me
anyway.
Oh, yes.
So but a joy of WP dot com
is probably the best way to reach me
or on Slack at joy of WP dot.
Did I say Slack?
I mean, Twitter, Joy of WP and Slack.
I'm in the Make WordPress channel.
I'm in the post status.
You know, I'm easy to find.
Somehow I get found.
Facebook.
Don't forget Facebook.
Wow.
People still use Facebook.
No, I know people still use Facebook.
My generation is the only one that still
uses Facebook.
What do you use?
Instagram, TikTok?
Yes, I definitely,
definitely use Instagram.
Yeah.
Which is, which,
which makes me old because yeah,
that's not, that's not.
It's true.
Yeah.
You're such an old guy.
There's a particular,
there's a particular generation that
there's the,
there's the generation uses Facebook.
And then the next one behind that uses
Instagram.
And the next one behind that is like
TikTok.
We are so marked by all this,
you know, like the words we use,
the things we like, you know,
I started realizing, God,
The stuff I talk about,
nobody knows what the hell I'm talking
about.
I go to WordCamp and, I mean,
I have to explain what Star Trek was.
Well,
you never have to explain what Star Trek
is to me.
Not to you.
Yeah, because you saw the reruns.
You stinker you.
Okay.
Well, thanks again, Bud, for coming on.
Thank you, everyone who might be watching.
And, yeah,
we'll see you all on the internet.