Summary
AI Bud
Justin Tadlock joins host Bud Kraus for a conversation about personal transformation, marriage, family, and the unexpected journey that made him one of the WordPress community’s most respected writers and developers. Justin begins by describing a health scare several years ago, when he learned he had diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. After celebrating the diagnosis with three Whopper Juniors from Burger King, he decided to make lasting changes through healthier eating, regular exercise, and moderation rather than restrictive diets. He credits those changes with improving his mental clarity and ability to concentrate. Justin also shares the story of meeting his wife through Hinge in 2024, after nearly giving up on online dating. They discovered a shared commitment to healthier living, married after about a year together, and bought a house. Although they officially married in a small ceremony at a library, they are planning a larger wedding celebration on New Year’s Eve. His wife, a nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, has encouraged him to maintain his healthier lifestyle.
Born and raised in Alabama, Justin speaks affectionately about his home state’s natural beauty, wildlife, and outdoor opportunities. Although he has lived in Atlanta twice and spent more than a year teaching English in South Korea, he ultimately returned to Alabama to remain close to his family. His time in South Korea provided an unexpected lesson in cultural differences: returning to the United States was more disorienting than leaving because suddenly he could understand every conversation around him. Justin also describes his extended family, which includes stepsiblings and half-siblings following his parents’ divorce and subsequent remarriages. An Auburn University graduate with a degree in English, Justin originally studied software engineering before switching majors. He found traditional programming courses too restrictive for his curiosity and preferred learning independently by reading technical books and experimenting with code. His interest in writing eventually led him to WordPress in 2005, when he needed a better way to publish his work online. What began as a practical solution quickly became a passion for developing themes and plugins.
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Justin’s early WordPress experiments eventually grew into Theme Hybrid, one of the platform’s pioneering commercial theme businesses. Inspired by early theme developers such as Tung Do, he taught himself how to customize WordPress and began sharing his creations with others. He launched Theme Hybrid around 2007 or 2008, during a period when the commercial WordPress theme market was just emerging alongside businesses such as WooThemes and Brian Gardner’s theme shop. He operated Theme Hybrid for approximately eleven years before deciding that he wanted a change from the responsibilities of running a business. An opportunity to write for WP Tavern, encouraged by Sarah Gooding, provided that fresh start. Justin became known for his thoughtful coverage of WordPress themes, plugins, and the people creating them. Rather than concentrating exclusively on technical reporting, he especially enjoyed discovering interesting projects and telling the stories of their developers. Bud recalls reading Justin’s articles religiously, praising his writing and the insights he brought to the WordPress community.
Today, Justin works at Automattic, where he leads the developer relations team. He explains that the team’s primary mission is to help developers, freelancers, and agencies build on WordPress through tutorials, documentation, videos, podcasts, and presentations. Their work also includes educating colleagues within Automattic about WordPress development. Bud challenges Justin to define Automattic, prompting a humorous exchange about the company’s many products, its relationship with the open-source WordPress project, and the difficulty of explaining such a complicated organization in a single sentence. Away from work, Justin enjoys collecting physical media, particularly movies and television shows. Although he uses streaming services, he appreciates owning physical copies, especially when digital purchases can disappear because of licensing changes or when older films are unavailable online. His interests include science fiction and fantasy, and he discusses watching Dark Matter on Apple TV and reading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. For Justin, fiction offers an enjoyable escape from everyday life, contrasting with Bud’s preference for news, politics, and nonfiction.
The conversation concludes with Justin reflecting on his relationship with the broader WordPress community and his plans for the future. Despite his long involvement with WordPress, he has never attended a WordCamp outside Alabama, something Bud finds astonishing. Justin hopes to attend WordCamp US when his schedule allows, although marriage, buying a house, and planning a wedding celebration have made the past year unusually busy. He also discusses his desire to write more frequently on his personal website while continuing to contribute to the WordPress Developer Blog. In a surprising admission, Justin reveals that his personal website doesn’t currently run on WordPress, prompting Bud to jokingly question his loyalty to the platform. When asked to recommend future guests, Justin suggests several colleagues from Automattic’s developer relations team, including Brian Welcher, Ryan Budbontion, and Juan Ma Garrido. The interview ends with mutual appreciation and the possibility of finally meeting in person at a future WordCamp. Throughout their conversation, Justin emerges as a thoughtful writer, self-taught developer, devoted family man, and someone whose willingness to embrace change has shaped both his personal life and professional career.
What’s Justing Up To? Find Out At The WP World.