{"id":113,"date":"2025-11-19T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/2025\/11\/19\/194-devin-walker-on-leading-jetpack-challenges-vision-and-the-future\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:00:00","slug":"194-devin-walker-on-leading-jetpack-challenges-vision-and-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xn--mnchen-3ya.xyz\/index.php\/2025\/11\/19\/194-devin-walker-on-leading-jetpack-challenges-vision-and-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"#194 \u2013 Devin Walker on Leading Jetpack: Challenges, Vision, and the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nTranscript<\/summary>\n
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[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.<\/p>\n

Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, leading Jetpack, the past, the challenges, the vision, and the future.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com\/feed\/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.<\/p>\n

If you have a topic that you\u2019d like us to feature on the podcast, I\u2019m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com\/contact\/jukebox and use the form there.<\/p>\n

So on the podcast today we have Devin Walker. Devin\u2019s journey in the WordPress ecosystem spans many years, with experience in development, design, marketing, and customer support. He is best known as the co-founder of GiveWP, which he built and scaled before it was acquired. During his time there, he touched a variety of prominent WordPress brands, including iThemes, Kadence, LearnDash, and The Events Calendar.<\/p>\n

Today Devon is starting a new role leading the Jetpack suite of services at Automattic. It\u2019s a position with hefty responsibilities as Jetpack powers millions of WordPress sites, and integrates deeply across<\/p>\n

I talk with Devon about why he took on this challenge. The divisiveness and complexity surrounding Jetpack, and his vision for refocusing the plugin and simplifying its user experience.<\/p>\n

We start by hearing about Devon\u2019s extensive WordPress background, and the choices he weighed up when deciding to join Automattic.<\/p>\n

The conversation quickly moves to the scope of Jetpack, its evolution, the struggle to be a jack of all trades master of none, and the recent efforts to bring greater focus and polish to key features like forms and SEO<\/p>\n

Devin gets into the organizational changes at Automattic. How Jetpack\u2019s development teams now collaborate more fluidly with other product teams, such as WooCommerce, and the balancing act of shipping improvements to a 4 million strong user base without breaking things.<\/p>\n

AI emerges as a massive new frontier, and Devin shares behind the scenes insights into Jetpack\u2019s current, and future, aI capabilities, giving us a glimpse at content creation, block building, and how AI might reshape user and developer expectations in WordPress.<\/p>\n

Throughout we hear about Devin\u2019s approach to product marketing, and the need for more of it, the importance of listening to user feedback, and his plans for a more coherent and compelling Jetpack experience.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a WordPress user wondering where Jetpack is headed, what\u2019s working, or how AI fits into the future of site building, this episode is for you.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com\/podcast, where you can find all the other episodes as well.<\/p>\n

And so without further delay, I bring you Devin Walker.<\/p>\n

I am joined on the podcast by Devin Walker. Hello, Devin.<\/p>\n

[00:03:34] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Hello.<\/p>\n

[00:03:35] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Very nice to have you with us. Devin has a shiny new job. Up until a few weeks ago, Devin was not an Automattician, or at least I don\u2019t think you were maybe at any point in your past. But you are now an Automattition, and you are doing what?<\/p>\n

[00:03:47] Devin Walker:<\/strong> My official title is Artistic Director of Jetpack, but basically product owner, or head of Jetpack. Whatever you want to call it.<\/p>\n

[00:03:55] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> So when it comes to Jetpack, the buck stops with you. I guess that\u2019s a pretty important role in the WordPress space over at Automattic. And if anybody hasn\u2019t heard of you, I suppose it would be important to just lay the groundwork, who you are, what you\u2019ve done in the past.<\/p>\n

I know you\u2019ve got a long and storied history, but just maybe a one minute little short bio telling us who you are and what you\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

[00:04:14] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Yeah, sure. I\u2019ve been using WordPress for all sorts of things, development, design, blogging for 16 years now. Really made my name known, I guess you would say, with Matt Cromwell. We co-founded GiveWP together, and we grew it for seven years, from late 2014, all the way through 2021, which then we were acquired by Liquid Web and was there for a little more than four years, and touched a lot of brands from there, from the iThemes rebrand to SolidWP, to Kadence, to LearnDash, Events Calendar, and of course GiveWP as well.<\/p>\n

And left there in early August of this year, 2025. I also built WP Rollback throughout the years, that has quite a few active installs. So yeah, that\u2019s a bit about me. Developer, design background, definitely well-rounded with marketing and supporting customer success.<\/p>\n

[00:05:05] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> So you\u2019ve had a lot of experience working with WordPress products, which I guess is what you are doing over at Automattic, because let\u2019s just call it head of Jetpack, just to make it easy. It\u2019s a curious title, by the way. Artistic Director is kind of a really.<\/p>\n

[00:05:17] Devin Walker:<\/strong> You know Automattic loves that title.<\/p>\n

[00:05:18] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, they love that, don\u2019t they? But head of Jetpack, and obviously you\u2019ve got a long and storied history kind of growing products and making sure that they succeed and customer support and all of that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

And I feel like Jetpack, no matter what time you dropped in on Jetpack in the last, let\u2019s say decade, I feel that half of the community felt like it needed a lot of love.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m just wondering when you were interviewing for this position or when this position was offered to you, I don\u2019t know how that process went, but what the kind of broad brush strokes are in what you\u2019re hoping to do over there?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll get into the weeds very much, but roughly speaking, what\u2019s the scope of the new job? What is it that you are hoping to do in the next three, six months, years, something like that?<\/p>\n

[00:05:57] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Yeah, so when I left Liquid Web, I wrote a long, well, not long, but wrote a blog post about closing that chapter of my career and really being open to what\u2019s coming next for me. I knew that I wanted to stay in WordPress and I was having fun building on just my own products at the time, and having full control of everything, the whole lifecycle of a product.<\/p>\n

And I did some work with Matt in the past on some of his nonprofit sites with Give and the VIP team and the concierge at Automattic. And so Matt called me up one day, you know, we stayed loosely in contact over the years, and said, we have some interesting opportunities here at Automattic, and one of them that I think you\u2019d be great at is Jetpack. And in my mind I\u2019m like, Jetpack, this is a doozy.<\/p>\n

But, you know, he said, give it some thought, work on your own pace and give me a call back whenever. And so I thought about it for a week and, maybe two weeks, talked to my wife about it. And really it comes down to, I was either going to start my own business again, and try to grind again and strike lightning twice, like GiveWP, and see if I could grow something and eventually sell it in five to seven years, which takes a lot of hard effort, sacrifice, money. A lot of your own money, and almost no guarantee. And the WordPress marketplace has changed so much that it\u2019s not immediate impact right away, and you\u2019re really out on your own.<\/p>\n

It worked well once, but I was in my early thirties, just turning 30, and now I\u2019m 40. So life\u2019s changed quite a bit for me. And Jetpack, it is a very divisive product, we can get more into that in the future, but really it came down to having that impact. Being at Automattic, a company that I\u2019ve respected since I came into WordPress, and always wanted to go behind the scenes and work as an Automattician, so going full circle from where my career began to the opportunity and the challenge.<\/p>\n

If I succeed at this, it can really open some other doors at Automattic. I\u2019m head of this product, which touches almost everything on Automattic as far as the WordPress business goes. I just thought about it long and hard, talked to Matt about it, and made sure I would have the levers for success also. And that\u2019s what made me choose to say yes and come aboard.<\/p>\n

[00:08:08] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It is kind of curious because if you just discount all of the stuff you just said about, you know, wanting to fight and build your own product up, I can well imagine how grinding that can be, and there\u2019s no guarantee of success. It could be a real failure.<\/p>\n

But stepping into a huge product, I\u2019m going to put my neck out on the line a little bit here and say, I actually can\u2019t think of a product or a plugin, let\u2019s go with that, in the WordPress space that tries to cover as many bases. Covered by any organisation, whether that\u2019s a third party development team or what have you, I can\u2019t think of one named product that tries to cover as many bases.<\/p>\n

And the fact that it\u2019s divisive and I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll get into this, but there\u2019s lots of room for improvement, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll agree. You are walking into something exactly as you say, where there is a chance of great success here. If you pull this off, and you pull the right levers, and in six months time, a year\u2019s time, two years time, the arc is going in the right direction, there\u2019ll be measurable success. So really interesting.<\/p>\n

So what was the bit, when you had that, oh, moment, what was the bit about Jetpack which made you think long and hard about it over two weeks, as opposed to immediately saying, yeah, I\u2019ll do it? There must have bits about the project, Jetpack as a plugin, whatever it may be. What were the bits that concerned you?<\/p>\n

[00:09:18] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019ve used it over the years on and off. I wouldn\u2019t call myself a power user at all, but I come from the community, 15 years of being in the community. I\u2019ve gone to, I don\u2019t even know how many WordCamps and always kept tabs on it, especially when, I don\u2019t know when it was. I think it was pre 2020, when they did like a bit of marketing push that Jetpack does donations now, accept donations with Jetpack. And it was through Jetpack forms. I didn\u2019t know that at the time, so I installed Jetpack. I was like, where\u2019s donations? You\u2019ve got to find your way through this tangled web. Oh, it\u2019s part of forms. Okay, let\u2019s go into forms. Oh, it\u2019s like a template now and you have to, the connect flow was terrible. The whole flow was not a great experience.<\/p>\n

And the donation form itself, I was like, oh, we have a pretty serious competitor now with Give, we\u2019ve got to like step our game up. But then I left that, I was like, okay, don\u2019t worry about it guys, we\u2019ll be fine now, nobody\u2019s going to use this. That\u2019s where that, oh, moment comes from where like, jack of all trades, master of none type of thing.<\/p>\n

[00:10:15] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, I think probably encapsulates it perfectly. It\u2019s kind of jack of all trades and master of none. So I\u2019m just going to rattle off some of the things that I know it does. I\u2019m probably missing quite a lot here. So for example, you know, it does stats, think something like Google Analytics, it will offer that for you. Backups. It will do protection. It will do speed and optimisation things on your website. Social sharing. It will do forms. There\u2019s VideoPress thrown in there as well. There\u2019s a whole bunch of stuff that I\u2019ve missed out there, but it really is encapsulating a lot.<\/p>\n

And the jack of all trades, master of none, bit kind of fits because when Jetpack came out, I\u2019m imagining it was a really, it was probably at the forefront of many of those things. The things that it did, it probably did as well as everybody else. But now, 10, 15, whatever years later, there\u2019s now been real amazing products delivered by third party developers that have become the standard of forms, of backups, of speed and optimisation services and what have you. And so Jetpack now has to kind of compare itself to the very, very best. And I think that\u2019s hard. You know, for one plugin to try and be the best at everything. Nigh on impossible, I would imagine.<\/p>\n

[00:11:16] Devin Walker:<\/strong> You\u2019re right. Like, we can\u2019t compete. I\u2019ve been preaching focus for the last, since 2016 when our mentors said, what the heck are you doing all these other plugins? Sell them off or sunset them and only focus on Give. And that\u2019s when our business started taking off. Now, what I\u2019m trying to do is bring focus back into Jetpack.<\/p>\n

We do some things very well, and we need to make sure that, I\u2019m not going to say we\u2019re going to compete on the level of a Gravity Forms for our form solution. It\u2019s going to come very close. And for 98% of the users out there that need forms on their website, I think it\u2019ll fulfill that need.<\/p>\n

For that special 2% that need like calculation fields, they need super customised form capabilities, then it might not get to that level. But we really want Jetpack to be your go-to solution so that you can have these products work well together as well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very generous too, the free version. You get a free CDN, you get VideoPress for free, and bringing people in the door and showing them that. Some folks are seeing the light of that, of what it can actually do and do pretty well. But for instance, like SEO. Yeah, Jetpack does SEO, but it\u2019s the most rudimentary, basic version. I want to make that a bit better there. But also things that it doesn\u2019t do well. Either get rid of those, if they\u2019re just going to sit on a shelf and grow with age, what\u2019s the point of it?<\/p>\n

So yeah, a lot of realignment with that and understanding that teams that are fully focused on one specific part of what Jetpack does, it\u2019s really hard for us to compete with that.<\/p>\n

[00:12:46] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Do you envisage a future for Jetpack now that you are at the helm, if you like ? And I don\u2019t know how the structure of the people that are working on Jetpack works. In other words, do you have a forms dedicated crew where you\u2019ve got, I don\u2019t know, a bunch of people who just work on forms? You\u2019ve got a bunch of people working on VideoPress and VaultPress and all of these different bits and pieces. Or is it, you work with Jetpack and you kind of move from team to team? I\u2019m just curious as to what it looks like inside of Automattic and the different bits that make up Jetpack.<\/p>\n

[00:13:14] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Yeah, so this is really an interesting time at Automattic, where they\u2019re going from that functional organisation where it\u2019s product focus. Where Jetpack did, a year ago, have a dedicated development team, designer team, and the person that was in my role before, it was just like a classic company structure in a way, within Automattic.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s shifting to more of a matrix organisation where there\u2019s one architecture team. They handle .com, they handle Jetpack, they handle a bunch of other products like WooCommerce within that. And the designers as a product are outside of that.<\/p>\n

And so what that means is we, as the product team, we have a shared roadmap where, if you ever use .com, a lot of what brings that special sauce to it, what makes it unique outside of the self installed WordPress is Jetpack. So for instance, forms is getting a massive upgrade. And the 15.2 that just came out, it has quite a big upgrade. 15.3, we\u2019re going to have even more. So there\u2019s a dedicated team right now that\u2019s, some of the best engineers, I\u2019ve been really blown away with the level of engineering at Automattic, are working on bringing forms up. And I\u2019m leading that initiative, putting myself into that place where I can then shape forms in the future.<\/p>\n

But that does mean that some other elements of Jetpack aren\u2019t getting taken care of right now. AI\u2019s going to become a big thing. We have to pick and choose based on our resources, what are the most important things for our shared initiative? But what that means is they work better together. I think you\u2019re going to see in the future a lot more benefit of running WooCommerce and Jetpack together.<\/p>\n

Now, we\u2019re not going to force you to log into wordpress.com to use WooCommerce, but to get some of that benefit, you will need to OAuth in to using Jetpack. And that is a requirement, because a lot of the Jetpack, what you get for free and the secret sauce is based on our cloud servers. You basically are starting to use our infrastructure for free. And Automattic is huge on privacy. And so I don\u2019t quite understand that whole conflict of folks that don\u2019t like that. There\u2019s just some people out there that will never really like Automattic and they will not OAuth in or double sign in to use Jetpack, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

[00:15:29] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s kind of curious. So if I\u2019m parsing it right, it sounds like what you were saying was that in a recent restructuring of Automattic and over the last 18 months or so, I think there\u2019s been a lot of that. It sounds like Jetpack is more of an amorphous thing. It\u2019s not like these particular people are dedicated to Jetpack Forms and these ones are for VaultPress or whatever it may be. It\u2019s more liquid than that. We\u2019re going to do a dedicated sprint on Forms, for example. It sounds like that\u2019s getting an update. So probably has had people on the seats having a look at that.<\/p>\n

And then once that\u2019s put away and tidied up, then move to something else. But also, I guess an interesting thing that you mentioned there is that because it\u2019s in this wider organisation of which WooCommerce, it\u2019s pretty big, that you can also communicate with those folks. So there may be some overlap between what Forms can do in Jetpack and something that you might wish to do with WooCommerce, those kind of things.<\/p>\n

So have I got that right? It\u2019s not like dedicated people doing dedicated products within Jetpack, it\u2019s much more liquid and amorphous than that.<\/p>\n

[00:16:23] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Absolutely. Rather than having silos we have one large organisation that works better together. And our vision is really that all the WordPress products should be very similar to Apple and how when you\u2019re using iOS or MacOS, there\u2019s a lot of similar fields and they work well together and they tag team off of each other.<\/p>\n

And prior to this reorg, that wasn\u2019t happening so much. And we experienced this at Stellar as well. They purchased a bunch of plugins, brought them all in, the vision was for them to all work well together. We went from functional organisation to this matrix type of organisation. And so this isn\u2019t my first rodeo doing it, I know it can work. But it does take a concerted effort, and it\u2019s still ongoing right now. It hasn\u2019t been 18 months, it\u2019s been like six months. And we\u2019re still trying to figure things out. So me stepping in at this time, I\u2019m really trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n

I have a blog post called, or a P2 post called Connecting the Dots, where I\u2019m just trying to find which experts and which products on Jetpack they know better. I\u2019ve been having so many one-on-ones just to try to get to know these folks, understand their history with Jetpack and put it in this kind of glossary of what I have here, and keep that updated as my time progresses here.<\/p>\n

[00:17:35] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It is kind of hard to get a grip on what Jetpack is. Because it\u2019s trying to do all these different things, I think it is quite hard for people to understand what they\u2019re installing. So they install Jetpack, okay, I\u2019ve heard that Jetpack\u2019s a thing, I\u2019ll go and install it. There\u2019s loads of free stuff available. And then all of a sudden there\u2019s bits which do work, there are bits which you can extend and upgrade and, you know, you might have to log in with .com to make that bit combine with this bit.<\/p>\n

And then there are bits where, you know, it feels like the classic themes work well in some areas, and then if you\u2019ve got a block-based theme, other things don\u2019t work quite so well. I\u2019m thinking like social sharing and things like that. And it\u2019s bit of a, mess is the wrong word, but it\u2019s incredibly confusing, I think, to a novice user. And so I\u2019m, I\u2019m going to put words into your mouth, I\u2019m guessing this is one of the challenges that you are going to try and tackle to take that confusion away. Because, I don\u2019t know, it doesn\u2019t matter how many times I log into Jetpack, there\u2019s always a bit of a surprise. Oh, okay, it works that way. That\u2019s curious. I wasn\u2019t expecting it to do that. And I\u2019ve been doing this for absolutely ages, and I\u2019m still surprised by the way things work.<\/p>\n

[00:18:33] Devin Walker:<\/strong> You\u2019re not alone. So one of the things that Matt\u2019s been saying since I\u2019ve come on board is we don\u2019t really need to build much more new things. We need to focus and improve what\u2019s already there, especially in Jetpack and .com. And simplifying it and making it make more sense to the end users. And Jetpack is a prime candidate for a really fresh look at how that can happen.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been doing exercises as the product team for a framework called Jobs to Be Done. You put yourself in the shoes of that customer and you experience it through fresh eyes, based on what they are looking to get out of it.<\/p>\n

For instance, the classic, I guess, analogy is, folks don\u2019t, they don\u2019t want a quarter inch drill bit, they want a quarter inch hole, and that\u2019s just the tool they use to get that quarter inch.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the same thing with Jetpack or any other software product, and it\u2019s a reforming in thinking. It\u2019s only my fifth week here, but it\u2019s been really a refreshing way to think about how we build product, and how I can then work with the designers to then smooth out those wrinkles of which there are many.<\/p>\n

[00:19:40] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s kind of interesting that you say that, because pretty much everything that Jetpack has, well, there\u2019s one notable exception, which is of course AI, which we\u2019ll come to in a minute. But more or less everything that\u2019s in Jetpack has been available in some form or other for a decade or more. You know, forms is, it\u2019s not a new thing. There\u2019s some interesting ideas that people have come up with that maybe we\u2019d want to integrate, but backups, it\u2019s not a new thing.<\/p>\n

So the idea of not having new, well, features is probably the wrong word, but not having a new product and just finessing what you\u2019ve already got, I think that would be music to any subscriber to Jetpack. One of the paid plans that you got, I think they would absolutely love that. Just finesse what you\u2019ve already got. We\u2019ve already got this thing, we know what we\u2019ve got, we know how it works, but finesse it, give us a few more features here and there in the bit, like for example, forms or what have you. That seems like music to my ears.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve said it. The cat is out the bag in this episode now, AI. AI is smuggled into Jetpack in the most, it\u2019s kind of hidden. It\u2019s almost entirely hidden, and yet incredibly profound. I don\u2019t know if, dear listener, you\u2019ve experienced Jetpack and it\u2019s AI features, but if you switch it on and you just go, I don\u2019t know, make a blog post or something like that, when you go to publish, it will just helpfully write your excerpt and your featured image, it will create that for you on the fly. It all happens in the background. It\u2019s really incredible. How did that get under the radar? And is that going to be a big feature?<\/p>\n

[00:21:02] Devin Walker:<\/strong> That is going to be a huge feature. I just came back from New York with our AI engineering team led by James LaPage, who\u2019s one of the brightest, young stars, I want to say, in WordPress. And he\u2019s one of the reasons that I\u2019m so excited for what AI can become with Jetpack, and where it\u2019s going to go from here. It\u2019s really great that you are already like what\u2019s there? But that\u2019s just scratching the surface from what we\u2019re going to be doing in the near future.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got quite a large team working on this. This is a 50 plus engineering team. It\u2019s a huge focus of Automattic. And Jetpack\u2019s the way we\u2019re going to bring a lot of what we\u2019re bringing to .com to self-hosted users. And it\u2019s not going to cost you really much at all and it\u2019s gonna be done in the WordPress way.<\/p>\n

Right now it tries to be your content companion, is kind of how I call it, but it\u2019s going to do that a lot better, and it\u2019s going to reach outside of the post editor and do a lot more helpful items for you in the WP admin. And not only in the WP admin, also provide some tools for you in the future for your visitors and how you can convert them, how you can get them to sign up on your newsletter, or you can get them to ask presales questions, or fill out forms or what have you. It\u2019ll be very moldable and shapeable.<\/p>\n

So I delightfully was at several demo presentations at this meetup where I was just blown away. Sat down with Matias, James, a lot of the key stakeholders and players here at .com on how and when we can start bringing this into Jetpack.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s there right now is good. It\u2019s almost going to be entirely rewritten and thrown away for what the foundation now is going to become. And so that\u2019s one of the more exciting, more immediate, roadmap items that I\u2019ll be really working on the next 8 to 12 months. You\u2019ll see a huge change.<\/p>\n

[00:22:54] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> I feel like at the moment the AI implementation in Jetpack is about content, the content that you\u2019re creating right at this moment. We\u2019re creating, I don\u2019t know, SEO fields and we\u2019re creating excerpts and things like that and featured images and what have you. But if you haven\u2019t had a play, again, I\u2019ll link this in the show notes, Automattic\u2019s Telex, which is the capability to, you write a simple prompt and it will create a block for you. I feel that something like Jetpack with something like Telex, just hidden in the sidebar of a WordPress blog post would be really kind of interesting. You know, the idea that, I need a block for this.<\/p>\n

[00:23:26] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Are you reading my DMs? Because, exactly. You\u2019ve already sort of got a crystal ball right there. And with Telex, that\u2019s a huge opportunity for site building, for imagining anything that WordPress could be, and having it created there.<\/p>\n

Right now it\u2019s great. It creates separate plugins, you can download and install them, you can\u2019t sync them per site. It\u2019s kind of annoying how there\u2019s all these plugins there. There\u2019s not much management updating over time. Jetpack can be that bridge for you, and that\u2019s really an exciting future where it needs to go.<\/p>\n

[00:23:57] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, because at the moment, if you are an inexperienced WordPress user, if you\u2019re not technical, let\u2019s put it that way, then you are constrained entirely by what\u2019s there or what the developer has built for you or the range of plugins that you\u2019ve installed. And I feel like in the near future, you reach that point of frustration and you suddenly realise that, oh, there is no block that does that thing. Well, why don\u2019t I just make one?<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ll write a small prompt, I don\u2019t know, I need a real estate block, or I don\u2019t know, I need a block because it\u2019s coming up to Christmas. I need a block which is going to show snowflakes falling on this particular post. Please don\u2019t do this by the way, but you get the point. I\u2019m just going to go ahead and make it, and it\u2019ll be this entirely disposable thing. And when I\u2019m finished with it, I\u2019ll probably just throw it in the trash or maybe keep it until next year.<\/p>\n

But the point is, your WordPress becomes like this, how to describe it, it\u2019s almost like the scaffolding for an infinite arrangement of possibilities. Whereas before, WordPress felt a bit like a box. If it wasn\u2019t in the box, it couldn\u2019t be done. But now the box got opened and there\u2019s all this scaffolding everywhere and it can do a million more things. And as Matt Mullenweg said, you know, it\u2019s becoming like the OS for the web or something like that.<\/p>\n

And the fact that AI is binding to the abilities inside of WordPress, so with the Abilities API and things like that, it knows everything that your WordPress website can do. You know, create users, create posts, delete posts, all of these kind of things. And Jetpack seems really aligned to doing that. I don\u2019t know how it would fit into the bigger Jetpack picture, but, yeah, interesting.<\/p>\n

[00:25:27] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Yeah, well, I think AI can be the glue that binds a lot of these individual products together and really paint the picture on how they work well together, and work within your WordPress Core to make it the Jetpack that is supercharged, right? I mean the WordPress that has a Jetpack strapped to it.<\/p>\n

There is a great number of, kind of mission statements and taglines over the years for Jetpack. None of which I think have been fully fulfilled. So I really want to revisit that, revise that, and you\u2019ll see a lot of updates coming to the website soon, soon-ish. Telling and bringing people along this journey.<\/p>\n

If you look at the website and a lot of the marketing right now, it\u2019s kind of on idle. So that\u2019s another big part of what I\u2019m being focused on, and that will help change the perception in the community and outside of it, of what Jetpack is and what it can do for you is, pulling up the curtain, if you will, on all the cool stuff we\u2019re doing here.<\/p>\n

You could read P2s all day here and many of them are so impressive and I feel like a lot of them should be public. There\u2019s so much good content here that is really impressive. For somebody like me who\u2019s been in the community for 15 years, like, oh my gosh, we have the best engineers, the best designers, and it\u2019s all in this P2. Like, let\u2019s get some of this published.<\/p>\n

[00:26:42] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, well, that\u2019s curious. So I was reading your mind a minute ago, you\u2019ve just read my mind, because the next little bit was going to be all about marketing. Because it doesn\u2019t matter, with the best will in the world, the best product in the world will probably fail, if not marketed correctly.<\/p>\n

And it feels as if, when Jetpack began, because it was kind of the thing, a long, long time ago it was the thing, it had that success kind of built into it. You know, it was an Automattic thing, it was a WordPress thing, it became popular because it did so many things that nothing else could do.<\/p>\n

Fast forward till today, it feels like the wheels have come off the marketing a little bit, or the train has completely pulled into the station and not moving at all. You know, I can\u2019t remember the last time I saw something engaging, like a YouTube video or somebody experimenting on their YouTube channel with a Jetpack thing.<\/p>\n

Whereas with third party plugins, it\u2019s happening all the time, you know? And so it feels like that\u2019s going to be a very big part of where you are, you know, you\u2019ll build hopefully some amazing things, but then trying to turn the tide and get people to be engaged and interested and see the utility of it. I\u2019m guessing that\u2019s going to be a part of the job which is separate to the technological part.<\/p>\n

[00:27:46] Devin Walker:<\/strong> It will, absolutely. I think for quite some time it was almost build it and they will come here. And for many, many years they did come. And now it\u2019s harder because the marketplace has expanded quite a bit. There\u2019s a lot of other folks out there doing really cool things with WordPress and have a lot more focused marketing efforts behind them.<\/p>\n

I mean, point and case was GiveWP, we were just, people weren\u2019t turning to Woo or Gravity Forms because we made it that it was the number one solution you had to go do it. We just hammered that point through WordCamps, through videos, through podcasts, whatever it was, that was our mission.<\/p>\n

And for Jetpack, we really need to refocus on that and do that a lot more. It\u2019s very engineering led organisation. I think marketing to some point is built into their roles and they\u2019re not doing that part as much as I would like.<\/p>\n

And on another aspect, I think we definitely just need more marketers. I\u2019m not going to say the exact numbers, but it was a surprisingly low number of marketers to the size of the organisation when I came in. I\u2019m used to a much better ratio.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m going to be hammering that point a little bit more home as I get through the door, but it\u2019s something that I\u2019ve mentioned a bit already in my 5 weeks here.<\/p>\n

[00:29:02] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know what the install base is specifically. It\u2019s a lot, right? Jetpack has a lot of installs and so presumably you\u2019ve.<\/p>\n

[00:29:08] Devin Walker:<\/strong> The core is 4 million.<\/p>\n

[00:29:09] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> 4 million. Okay, so, wow, gosh. So presumably that means anything that you do do, you\u2019ve really got to tread carefully. So for a start, you can\u2019t break things. You can\u2019t just ship a brand new UI in let\u2019s say the forms aspect of it overnight. And I presume that\u2019s kind of like a bit of a noose around your neck in that, you know, you want to move fast and break things in some respects, but with 4 million installs, which is really right at the very top in the WordPress ecosystem, that\u2019s big, big numbers. You are going to constrained in what you can do and how fast you can move things and how quickly you can break things.<\/p>\n

[00:29:40] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Somewhat. Somewhat I agree with that. Right now we are on a monthly release cycle and there\u2019s definitely a lot of caution around that. And Jetpack touches a lot of .com too, so there\u2019s that extra added user base, which is humongous. So there is that bit of treading carefully.<\/p>\n

But I want to balance that with being aggressive. We just shipped, prior to me coming on board, a new onboarding for getting connected. It\u2019s just through the connection segment, getting connected to .com, and that really had positive results and saw an uptick in connected successful sites. I think we can take that to the next level and explain what Jetpack is, what they need it for, and really optimise it for the best use case based on what that particular site wants or needs.<\/p>\n

Going beyond onboarding is then getting into the product UI itself, making the navigation much more clear and understandable.<\/p>\n

You know, there\u2019s three different areas in Jetpack right now where you can toggle on and off different modules or products.<\/p>\n

[00:30:39] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Oh, I\u2019ve discovered many them.<\/p>\n

[00:30:41] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Yeah. So I think we need to consolidate that at least. And there\u2019s more Easter eggs. I don\u2019t even want to call them Easter, I don\u2019t know what you\u2019d call that, but interesting quirks that we can clean up.<\/p>\n

And for the most part I think we do have to be a bit careful because it\u2019s such a massive user base. Breaking things, just look at some of the Jetpack reviews. Breaking them and lack of support. Those are the two main cause of one star reviews. And with that many, I really want to get that review base above 4.0 stars. But with 3000 or whatever reviews it is, it takes a long shift to get that. And we\u2019re not going to do that by continually breaking things, so it\u2019s a balance.<\/p>\n

[00:31:19] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It\u2019s kind of interesting that me, a relatively inexperienced user of Jetpack, I was able to discover many of the quirks that you\u2019ve just mentioned almost immediately. You know, just being curious. And I\u2019m the kind of person that when I download anything, I go and look at every single menu item and kind of think, well, what does that do? How would that work? It really didn\u2019t take me long to discover, well, hang on, that is somewhere else. If I engage that, does that mean it conflicts with this thing over here?<\/p>\n

And I saw this over and over again. And so I think that, as you imagine, would be some of the very, very brilliant low hanging fruit. To just have a UI which does, you know, there\u2019s one place for one thing, it works as expected that you don\u2019t, I\u2019m sure you know where I\u2019m going with this, basically, just simplify things, make it elegant in the same way that we\u2019ve seen with so many third party plugins.<\/p>\n

Because at the moment it kind of feels like a whole range of different things that have been slammed together and forcefully told to get along with each other, as opposed to like a happy family that, just everything works and everybody\u2019s happy and there\u2019s bliss and rainbows everywhere. It feels a little bit like that, if you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

[00:32:21] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Oh, I completely agree. I think we used in the pre-show and it\u2019s a bit of a Frankenstein. We need to change it from that. If I had a nickel for every toggle in Jetpack, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d need to work anymore. There are quite a few toggle on, toggle offs in just a row. You can imagine how this interface could be much more elegantly put together.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019re going to use user feedback for a lot of this and ask, hey, what do you guys think of this? Because we can\u2019t do it successfully in a bubble.<\/p>\n

[00:32:52] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Well, and the other thing is, given the perfect UI, it does so much stuff. If you just had Jetpack, if you had a vanilla version of WordPress and you installed Jetpack and everything was easy to navigate and worked as expected first time and maybe there was no dependency on having a .com account or what have you. It does all the things. It would take you from like zero success to broadly speaking, okay, you\u2019ve got a credible website. Maybe there\u2019s going to be some interesting cases where you want a little bit more SEO finesse or something like that.<\/p>\n

It would get you to the races, you know, it would get you to put your horse in the race and have a good go. And there\u2019s not much like that out there. There really is nothing that I can think of in the WordPress space. But it\u2019s a leviathan and it\u2019s got many heads. We need it just to have the one head, I think.<\/p>\n

[00:33:35] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Very much so, and that\u2019s the challenge that I\u2019m in here to work with this entire team and put a lot of thought behind it.<\/p>\n

[00:33:44] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Okay, so it\u2019s all on you. So if Jetpack is a success in two years time, we know who to thank for that. And it does genuinely seem, for somebody with your obvious interest and capabilities, it does seem really, really enjoyable. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll keep you awake, but an enjoyable challenge. Something that you get your teeth into. Something where the success can be measured fairly quickly. You know, does the discontent diminish? Does the UI improve? Tick, tick, tick. We did a good job.<\/p>\n

And also, there\u2019s loads of room for improvement. So you\u2019ve entered on a, you\u2019ve definitely got yourself into a position where you\u2019ve taken on a project where the improvements are evident everywhere. I hope that you managed to grab hold of them and wrestle this to the ground.<\/p>\n

[00:34:21] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Well, I really appreciate that, Nathan, and why don\u2019t we have a check in in 12 months and see where we\u2019re at on this journey. I think that would be a good way to keep us honest, follow along in this journey along the way, we\u2019ll see how far we\u2019ve gotten.<\/p>\n

[00:34:35] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Okay, well, for now then, go and install Jetpack. If you\u2019re listening to this, we\u2019ll be back in 12 months time, so go and have a play with Jetpack as it is now and see.<\/p>\n

It sounds to me that Devin is like all ears. If you\u2019ve got some quirks and you found something that\u2019s curious or unexpected or dissatisfying or just downright annoying, where do we get in touch with you? Oh, also, I suspect Devin\u2019s more than happy to receive positive commentary as well.<\/p>\n

[00:35:01] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean the positive stuff\u2019s great too. Right now feedback@jetpack.com is a good place, but we\u2019re going to make this a lot more public in the near future. You can also just tweet at me @innerwebs, I-N-N-E-R-W-E-B-S, or go to my website devin.org. But jetpack.com, jetpack.com\/feedback is also a great place. So that\u2019s a bit about me and where you can find the Jetpack information.<\/p>\n

[00:35:27] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Okay, thank you. So definitely a challenge out in the public for Devin to get his teeth into WordPress\u2019 Jetpack, and see if he can figure it out and make it better. Let\u2019s check back in 12 months time and see how we\u2019re going. Devin Walker, thanks for chatting to me today.<\/p>\n

[00:35:38] Devin Walker:<\/strong> Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n

On the podcast today we have Devin Walker<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Devin\u2019s journey in the WordPress ecosystem spans many years, with experience in development, design, marketing, and customer support. He\u2019s best known as the co-founder of GiveWP, which he built and scaled before it was acquired. During his time there, he touched a variety of prominent WordPress brands including iThemes, Kadence, LearnDash, and The Events Calendar.<\/p>\n

Today, Devin is starting a new role leading the Jetpack suite of services at Automattic. It\u2019s a position with hefty responsibilities as Jetpack powers millions of WordPress sites, and integrates deeply across Automattic\u2019s product portfolio.<\/p>\n

I talk with Devin about why he took on this challenge, the divisiveness and complexity surrounding Jetpack, and his vision for refocusing the plugin and simplifying its user experience.<\/p>\n

We start by hearing about Devin\u2019s extensive WordPress background and the choices he weighed up when deciding to join Automattic. The conversation quickly moves to the scope of Jetpack, its evolution, the struggle to be a \u201cjack of all trades, master of none\u201d, and the recent efforts to bring greater focus and polish to key features like forms and SEO.<\/p>\n

Devin gets into the organisational changes at Automattic, how Jetpack\u2019s development teams now collaborate more fluidly with other product teams (such as WooCommerce), and the balancing act of shipping improvements to a 4 million strong user base without breaking things.<\/p>\n

AI emerges as a massive new frontier, and Devin shares behind-the-scenes insights into Jetpack\u2019s current and future AI capabilities, giving us a glimpse at content creation, block-building, and how AI might reshape user and developer expectations in WordPress.<\/p>\n

Throughout, we hear about Devin\u2019s approach to product marketing (and the need for more of it), the importance of listening to user feedback, and his plans for a more coherent and compelling Jetpack experience.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a WordPress user wondering where Jetpack is headed, what\u2019s working, or how AI fits into the future of site building, this episode is for you.<\/p>\n

Useful links<\/h2>\n

Jetpack<\/a><\/p>\n

Jetpack feedback form<\/a><\/p>\n

GiveWP<\/a><\/p>\n

\u200aWP Rollback<\/a><\/p>\n

Automattic AI team announcement post<\/a><\/p>\n

Telex<\/a><\/p>\n

Devin\u2019s website<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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