Summary
AI Dolores
In this episode of Seriously, BUD?, Bud sits down with Joost de Valk to explore his personal story behind one of the most recognizable names in the WordPress ecosystem. The conversation begins with their shared connections in the Dutch WordPress community, including longtime colleague Taco Verdonschot. Joost reflects on growing up in a small Dutch town near one of the country’s oldest cities and notes how many WordPress contributors seem to have emerged from the Netherlands. Despite the community’s global reach, he still sees himself as someone from a modest background who simply followed opportunities as they appeared.
Joost describes his family and upbringing, including a brother who once served as CEO of Yoast and a sister who lives elsewhere in the country. His father worked with international NGOs helping developing nations, while his mother was a relationship therapist. Although both of his parents studied theology – a path Joost briefly attempted in university – traditional academic life never quite suited him. Instead, he moved into the technology world, first working at a Java development company and later at a hosting company, where his deeper interest in coding began to take shape.
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His path into WordPress came through curiosity and experimentation. After receiving a Mac at the hosting company, Joost began contributing to open-source projects such as OpenDarwin and later WebKit, the browser engine behind Safari and eventually Chrome. While writing about new CSS developments on a blog called CSS3.info, he built the site on WordPress and became interested in search engine optimization. That curiosity led to a job at an SEO company and ultimately to creating SEO plugins for WordPress – including the one that would grow into the Yoast SEO plugin. Joost notes that the plugin succeeded partly because it entered the market at the right time, when there were few strong SEO tools available for WordPress users.
Today, after selling Yoast, Joost’s professional life includes investing in companies – many of them within the WordPress ecosystem – and working on a new project called Progress Planner, which focuses on helping people maintain and improve their websites over time. Outside of business, he also serves as secretary of his local football club and, like many parents, spends plenty of time driving his children to activities. Family remains central to his life, including time spent at a second home in Tuscany, which he hopes to enjoy more frequently once his youngest child grows older.
Throughout the conversation, Joost pushes back on the idea that he is “famous.” Living in a small town keeps things grounded, and he believes the hero worship sometimes seen in tech communities is misplaced. For him, success grew out of curiosity, collaboration, and good timing rather than a grand plan. The discussion ends with reflections on the value of community and storytelling – the very reason Bud started the Seriously, BUD? podcast – and Joost emphasizes that even well-known figures in WordPress are simply people doing their work and trying to build something meaningful.
What’s Joost Up To? Find Out At The WP World.