In reply to Jeff Chandler.

Note: When I refer to simply "WordPress" below it's in reference to the open source project itself. As we all know it can confuse some LOL.

WordPress.com will continue to add features and functionality to meet the demands of the market it serves as well as expand upon it, but it doesn't mean it won't make sense to continue doing so on top of WordPress. If there is something within WordPress itself that doesn't meet their needs and it's something that doesn't make sense to add to WordPress, they can simply work around it. Which they already do as needed.

I think there will always be some level of intertwine between the two as WordPress.com is basically a managed hosted web site solution and WordPress is an open source web site solution.

I don't see that stopping unless WordPress.com is getting out of the web site business. But it doesn't mean Automattic is strictly in the web site business.

Automattic could create entirely new products in entirely new spaces that aren't directly tied to WordPress.com itself or are loosely tied to it (ie. have some level of integration, or not).

Look at Google and it's diversification. Hardware, self driving cars, etc. Look at Facebook with it's purchase of Oculus.

So as far as the growth goes and years down the road having thousands of employees, it certainly doesn't mean thousands of employees working on WordPress.com itself.

There's still a myriad of places they could go from a WordPress.com perspective that would require a lot of people in order to make it happen.

If they wanted to dig much deeper in niche markets is one of them. They've dabbled in it with industry specific solutions such as http://www.wordpress.com/restaurants, etc. but they are just that... basic.

In order to go big in a niche market they would have to go much further than the basics. That takes people. People that know those industries intimately. People that can build those industry specific applications. People that can sell the product to the businesses within that industry.

That can most definitely be built on top of WordPress and it would most definitely require hyper growth in order to move into multiple industries simultaneously and independently.

So even without diversification like Google and Facebook into markets you wouldn't have originally thought they'd move into there is plenty of places Automattic itself could go.