Hi. I’m Toni Schneider.
I live in San Francisco with my wife Diane, our kids Sophie, Ben, and Owen, and our dogs Pepper and Rufus. I work for Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, and True Ventures, a seed stage VC firm. I like technology startups, cars, and alternative energy. Once upon a time I grew up in Switzerland, then moved to California for college.
Here’s a short bio, a high-res photo, my resume, and a video from 2012 of me talking about my career and what makes Automattic and WordPress successful.
I’m currently involved with these fine companies:
- Automattic (CEO)
- True Ventures (Venture Partner)
- Bandcamp (board member)
- Madefire (board member)
- Showyou (board member)
- Singly (advisor)
Past companies:
- Sphere (co-founder, acquired by AOL)
- Yahoo (VP Developer Network)
- Oddpost (CEO, acquired by Yahoo)
- Uplister (CEO)
- Aureal Semiconductor (VP Technology, acquired by Creative Labs)
- Crystal River Engineering (Software Engineer, acquired by Aureal)
Recent press and awards:
- Forbes – WordPress rules the web
- BusinessWeek – Why some company offices are virtual
- AllThingsD – Automattic grows up
- WPVibe – Interview
- Blick am Abend – Wie Toni das Netz eroberte
- Crunchies – Startup CEO of the Year Award
- New York Times – Times Company invests in Automattic
- Wall Street Journal – Blog Software Firm Gets $29 Million in Financing
- L’Expansion – Le succès de WordPress est celui du modèle open source
- CBS Wallstrip – Wallstrip interview
- PodTech – Scoble Show interview
- Business 2.0 – The Startup Type
- GigaOm – Yahoo Exec Exits For Automattic CEO Gig
- PaidContent- Toni Schneider Leaves Yahoo
- Morten Lund – Oddpost Did It
- CNET- Yahoo Acquires Oddpost
- Wired – Frugal Oddpost Is Downturn Baby
Recent speaking engagements:
- Plug and Play Expo – Keynote
- Signal San Francisco – WordPress: Publishing at a Massive Scale
- Web 2.0 Summit – Point of Control: You
- UCSB – TMP Lecture Series
- Freemium Summit – The Business of Free (slides)
- Technopark Zurich – Erfahrungen als CEO und VC
- EconSM – Getting Real: Grown-Up Start Ups
- SxSW 2007 – Why Marketers Need To Work With People Media
- SxSW 2006 – The New Startup Cultures
- Web 2.0 Summit – Harnessing Collective Intelligence (photo)
- Web 2.0 Conference – Open vs Closed Models
- Foo Camp – Opening up Yahoo
- SDForum – Startup SIG (photos)
- TiEcon – Bootstrapping Startups
Contact: t@toni.org
Toni.org 
23 replies on “About”
Hey Toni!
Great to find you. I just sent you an email.
Talk soon,
Rick
I am new and I am looking to find my way to this channel.
I wish you the best for your work and for your life.
A very happy new year!!!!!
ardalion.wordpress.com
[…] While WordPress is an open-source software project, Automattic is a privately-held for-profit firm. Toni Schneider is the […]
[…] is a great day. I’d like to personally thank Toni at Automattic (the company that owns WordPress) for accepting me into their WordPress Consultant […]
Hello Toni,
I am real interested in finding a diesel landcruiser to run biodiesel. Thanks for the info. I am also here in SF. I have been checking craidslist and ebay for canadian models. I am also researching an engine conversion.
regards
Brad
Will someday want to have a resume as impressive as yours. You are good.
[…] Our speakers for September are Matt Mullenweg & Toni Schneider. […]
Another Mr. Schneider says Hi and wishes all the best. 🙂 Love your blog, btw.
Hello Toni,
At the outset, I would like to thank you for giving us such a great platform for expressing ourselves. I had always loved writing, but did not have the avenue to do it. WordPress has shown me the way. And, I have just added https://toni.org/ to my blog roll, as I felt that my work will always remain incomplete, if I do not acknowledge the contribution that you have made to me and numerous others.
Best regards
Arup Deb
http://arupbytes.wordpress.com/
Happy New Year 2009
[…] quoted Toni Schneider, a Partner at True Ventures and CEO of Automaticc, “You have to be able to exercise that […]
[…] もし何か今後、ドメインやライセンスのことで分からないことがあれば、Automattic や WordPress 日本語チームに連絡することもできるし、私はもちろん、マットやトニーも連絡先を公開しています。もちろん誤解してしまって取り返しのつかないことになる、なんてということはほとんどないですが（本などと違って修正できるのがウェブの利点だと思いますし、指摘を受けて変更を加えられたのは改善ととらえています）、不明な点はまず連絡してもらえればと思います。 […]
[…] Toni Schneider (CEO, Automattic) has an excellent post describing the reasons for a company to have a distributed team. I’ve noticed a new trend in Silicon Valley. More and more startups are beginning life as distributed companies, and investors and partners are starting to accept it as normal. Our company Automattic is distributed, and I’m ready to sing the praises of running a business in this way. BTW, I think distributed (“evenly spread throughout an area”) is a better description than the more commonly used virtual (“nearly real or simulated to be real”) for a company that has people working from all over the place instead of a centralized office. In Automattic’s case, we currently have over 50 employees spread across 12 US states and 10 countries. […]
[…] for almost 8 years now (I joined MySQL AB in April, 2002). Therefore I’ve been reading Toni Schneider’s blog post about the "5 reasons why your company should be distributed" with great […]
[…] Enjoying 2010 Skip to content HomeA3DAboutBioResumeBiodieselCar museumWordPress ← Ted Salkin’s […]
[…] día de ayer alrededor de las 16:00 hrs. llegó a Chile Toni Schneider, Director Ejecutivo (CEO) de la empresa Automattic, responsable de […]
[…] friend Toni Schnieder introduced me to Freitag bags about four years ago. Being Swiss, he know of them long before […]
[…] Ventures invested in the Seed round for BackType in August 2010 along with Toni Schneider from True Ventures (lead), Josh Felser and Dave Samuel from FreeStyle Capital, Chris Sacca from […]
[…] dinner with Abinash, Ben, Toni, Dave, and […]
Thank you, Toni, for your impressive contributions and for being part of the innovative team at Automattic. Keep up the great work in making the world a better place through social media and connectivity. Happy New Year!
[…] Radar Partners, and the New York Times Company all who have stake in the growing company. As Toni Schneider shares in his blog post, Tiger isn’t a small player (although a more “behind the […]
[…] the company behind WordPress, and today it’s CEO, Toni Schneider, announced that privately held investment management firm, Tiger Global Management has just […]
[…] were already friends before traveling to Baghdad together in 2009, sharing an amazing week in Iraq. Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic – well him I barely know but we’ve had nice conversations over the […]