The WP Minute+

Matt: Victor Ramirez,
welcome to the WP Minute.

Victor: Good to be here.

Matt: You're the first
of a laboratory session.

No, not a laboratory, a psychologist
session of breaking down, you

know, what are the challenges
folks are facing headed into 2025?

Obviously, we've got the big, 3, 000 pound
gorilla in the room with WordPress Drama.

We've got AI seeping into all angles
of development and marketing people

looking at this is going to replace us
and we have the natural temperature of a

competitive landscape with so many more,
people coming online, building services,

businesses, becoming freelancers.

There's alternative
content management systems.

We want to talk about
some of that stuff today.

But last time, let's just introduce
who you are and what you do.

Last time you and I chatted
was on a Twitter space.

I looked at you as this guy who
freelances in the enterprise space.

Did I get that correct, or
what do you do these days?

Victor: I fell into freelance.

So I've always had a day job
and I sometimes forget to talk.

I don't talk about my day
jobs that much because.

Unfortunately, the enterprise companies
that I've worked for, they don't, they're

not saying they don't value open source.

They do take advantage of open source.

They sometimes contribute to open source.

They, you know, issues, bugs, et cetera,
but it takes so much effort to get

them to even sign a piece of paper to
let me speak at a conference that it's

just better that I do my own thing.

I was previously at News Corp, Wall
Street Journal, and I helped build

the enterprise WordPress system.

there with like five VIP agencies.

After that I was at, the not
worldwide, which is if you have

anyone got married, what, weddingwire.

com.

Cassimiertos, hitched Mariajo
it's like global organization.

and then now I'm at Sotheby's, which is
Sotheby's art if anyone has auctioned

a pair of Michael Jordan sneakers.

But throughout that I
do freelance because.

From the journal that got me WordPress
work, people would hear about the

work I was doing, and then I would
be on Upwork or I'd be, you know,

on LinkedIn and people would say,
Hey, I need help with WordPress.

And then from WordPress, that's
actually how I got the job.

At the Knot.

at the Journal, I had to learn a lot
about APIs and data architecture.

And at The Knot Worldwide, we went from
160 websites to one unified architecture

and that, and it was in analytics.

And then at Sotheby's, that's what I do
right now, where I work in enterprise

analytics and it's our analytic systems
across Sotheby's dot com is eight

different applications in a website suit.

That's what I like to joke.

It's Python, it's Ruby, it's a
mobile application, but we have

to have a unified analytics
architecture and that's what I manage.

And so, you know, throughout the
pandemic, at the beginning of the

pandemic, I was like, everyone
was laying everyone off in 2021.

And then those people were coming
to me and saying, Hey, A marketing

team that used WordPress was
like, we lost five engineers.

Can you pick up and keep the site
maintained for this event coming up?

And that did really well in 2021.

And then it kind of dried out and now
I'm doing mostly data analytics stuff

related to what I'm doing right now.

Matt: Now, across the board,
it was, that's a healthy

set of logos on your resume.

Across the board, was that,
is that all WordPress?

Like what you're doing with
Sotheby's now, is it all WordPress?

Or are you doing

Victor: nothing is WordPress, nothing
outside of freelancers, WordPress anymore.

Like I, but WordPress is still
my go to tool and that's what.

Okay.

So if I'm going to do a demo for the
team, what drives me crazy is, and not to

insult them, I'll get a react engineer.

Who can, you know, code all
these cool front end libraries,

do all this great stuff.

But when I try to explain to him
how to install an NPM package that

lets him use Google Tag Manager,
they get so frustrated and they

won't give me a staging environment
because you know, I'm not there.

I'm not the application engineer.

I'm the analytics engineer, so I
don't get a staging environment.

That's unique to me because
of resourcing issues.

I don't get my own GitHub repo.

I don't get my own branch.

I don't get my own keys.

So I will spin up a WordPress
environment and I'll make a mock.

Website of our own products using
WooCommerce and I will install

Google Tag Manager from WooCommerce.

I'll install a CMP I'll install all
the things the same that we would do in

our enterprise organization and I demo
with WordPress And so WordPress is kind

of like my laboratory And so and then
the same thing at the not worldwide we

were using WordPress in some of our e
commerce applications But as we move

towards a monolithic architecture,
it was migrating from WordPress

Into the monolithic architecture.

And that was driven by a big commerce
API, but knowing WordPress in the end,

I tell people, I kind of see, you know,
I heard someone say when learning to

code, it's like learning how to cook.

Like whether a person knows how to fry
an egg in a wok or fryer or egg in a.

Cast iron skillet or do it on a
flat grill, you know, how to cook

an egg, you know, how to make
the yolk the right way, whatever.

So I see WordPress as like,
Hey, it's a griddle and it's

like, you know, and I, and then
sometimes I have to cook at a walk.

Sometimes I cook on a flat
top, but WordPress really

is my tried and true system.

and I can teach a
marketing person to use it.

I can teach an engineer to use it for
all its warts and whatever, you know.

Matt: yeah.

What do you think the biggest
challenge is, and you can take it in

two paths, either you personally as
a freelancer who's, you know, maybe

on the side, trying to find more
WordPress work or get WordPress out

there, or at your, full-time gig.

Where are the biggest challenges
you see headed into 2025

Victor: For WordPress, I think that
in my, I think the biggest problem for

WordPress is going to be, and this was
at News Corp, as much as I can say, the

first thing I was hired for, I was not
hired as a great engineer at News Corp.

I was running the WPMYC meetup.

You know, we had, working
with Steve Bruner, with Sina

Hughes and other people there.

We had the meetup at Times Square.

It was a great thing.

That's what got me the job.

Essentially, they were like,
you're the only person based in New

York who's willing to take a job.

We need a wordpress subject matter expert,
and I actually ran to someone the other

day who worked for the Washington Post and
had the same job, and I had to compare.

Arc, which was owned by Amazon and used
by the Washington Post, Chorus, which is

now gone, by the way, good thing we didn't
bet on that, owned by Vox, and WordPress

won out at News Corp, and the reason
WordPress won out is what I said was,

we've got a great community, and I didn't
even say we, I was look, if I have to drop

WordPress and that's what keeps me my job,
I understand because that's business and

News Corp had to say, like, and I said,
look, in the end, News Corp, WordPress is

not owned by one individual organization.

If any organization were to fall
down, like if automatic were to

leave and funny to say that now,
if automatic were to quit, everyone

else still has access to the repos.

Everyone still has access to the org.

We could fork and move on.

If we don't like it, we just.

Lock, freeze our version because
we use GitHub version control.

We freeze our version.

We decide what plugins
we want to maintain.

We decide what plugins to replace
with a third party API, et cetera.

And we move on.

But I think the issue now, if I were in
that same job and I am having that now

where I'm working with certain marketing
teams and they're saying to me, and

this is outside of Sotheby's, like I've
worked with some enterprise, I'm one of

the 1 percent of enterprise certified.

WordPress developers on Upwork.

So if you go on Upwork and you
see my badge, I had an interview.

I worked for Databricks.

I actually built Databricks WordPress
website, which is now a headless website.

And it's funny cause Databricks
was not big three years ago.

Now they're huge in the AI space.

and.

They're coming, not Databricks, but
other companies are coming to me and

saying, should we even bother investing
in this WordPress website anymore?

Should we just focus on moving to Webflow?

And luckily where I sit, I'm like, listen,
that's not really a conversation with me.

We're going to use Google tag manager.

So whether you use Webflow, a custom
react application or WordPress, there's

a module that lets us inject Google
tag manager with Google analytics,

Fathom, whatever you're using.

So we're abstracting away our analytics
and that's kind of what I sell.

Like I'm very good at abstracting
things out, but now I think more and

more people are going to have to say,
how do I abstract this particular need?

If it's a, if it's a video website and
you would never do video in the WordPress

media manager, but now it's like, Hey,
if I use something like Cloudinary,

it's actually injecting the Cloudinary
media manager into WordPress so that

if we ever move away from WordPress.

, it's, there's no lag
in the user interface.

It's just gonna be cloud
nary, but in different, in,

in craft cloud, near and sat.

I dunno if I'm even saying that right.

Static sta sta and I think that's
how people are gonna have to think.

And you can sell more, but it's not
helping because people are saying, do I

wanna spend any more money on WordPress?

And I'm like, and that's like,
that's with clients all the time.

they always wanna change horses.

And I'm like, listen, don't
change horses while riding.

Let's just continue on the GTM work.

But you're not wrong to think that
way, keep an eye on it, and I'm

going to build it in such a way that
you don't have to worry about it.

We're going to make it so it's
abstracted, but you should worry about it.

Matt: I want to just take the
conversation just, not really a

fork in the road, but just a touch.

you mentioned Upwork.

I think of a guy like you, and no
offense, I think of a guy like Like

you that has all this enterprise
experience like Upwork this people

should just be knocking on this You
should have a waiting list of people in

his inbox is Upwork a true alternative
for folks to find Freelance work.

I've always looked at those sites.

It's there's there can't be a guy
like Victor on Upwork That's just

I just think of it as like smaller
little gig type projects, but Upwork

is good for you Can you help that
break that down for the listener?

Who's thinking I want to find work
like Victor Maybe I should try Upwork

Victor: Upwork is great if you
can't let Upwork be your only thing.

It's the same thing like, listen,
the reason I, you know, joined the

WordPress meetup was one, I was trying
to learn, but it was about access, right?

And so if people, if you go and
you Google hire, Again, this

is a marketing question, right?

So it's like saying to yourself, like.

If I were to run ads as a WordPress
developer in New York city, I think

it's 50 per click for an ad, a
Google ad for WordPress developer.

Right?

So let's say globally, it's 20.

You're competing against big agencies
that have big dollars sales teams.

Can you answer the phone?

The minute someone clicks the thing?

Can you make a call?

Can you take an enterprise call?

So I saw it as a channel.

And what happened was I got
lucky at the time in 2020.

Upwork was looking to
professionalize their services.

So I was on there and I put that I had
worked with the Wall Street Journal.

I put that I had worked with like,
you know, certain organizations.

And then, when Databricks was looking
for someone, Upwork was like, Hey,

you have enterprise experience.

We're going to put you
in front of Databricks.

So that's what got me to work.

But I would say for most people,
if you can be on Upwork, this is

another way to think about it.

If you're, and I don't know, cause SEO is.

Customized by localization.

AI is changing SEO now, but if someone
goes and types in WordPress developer.

St.

Paul, Minnesota, right?

Your Upwork profile is going to
rank higher than a LinkedIn profile.

It's going to rank higher than your
own website because Upwork does

its own SEO and it's prioritized.

So I would argue it's good.

and, but the thing is to
not undercut yourself.

You're not, and I wrote an article.

If you check my website,
you do is victorious Upwork.

I wrote and talked about,
you're don't think of yourself

competing against people.

You know, charging 5 an hour, or I think
the limit's like 10 an hour over in

India or Vietnam, think of yourself as
like, they want to hire someone who has

the cultural nuance and I would argue
for like legal reasons, you know, like

you have to hire within certain regions.

and the other thing too, on Upwork
is you're competing from, do

you understand the U S market?

And that was with Databricks.

Databricks was running a U S based event.

And what was happening was, you
know, these, some of these companies,

they go and hire a developer
from abroad and that developer.

Doesn't have the eye to see
like, Hey, you're doing this RTL.

This is a very confusing interface.

This interface is actually for
that side of the hemisphere.

You want your sidebar on the left.

And it's little things like
that, that add up to a client.

And so that's what I did well on Upwork.

I'm getting back on there now because
I kind of took a break from it because

like what happened was, and this was
another flux in the WordPress soup, so to

speak, Gutenberg and the editor, because.

So many block editor tools are coming
out with all these crazy block interface

changes That I didn't know how to put
my foot down with clients and say we're

not doing that Now I can because of two
things accessibility and analytics So

now if a client wants all these woozhings
all across the street like we can do

that You're gonna lose hotspot tracking.

You're gonna be not GDPR compliant.

You're not gonna be accessible compliant.

So We can do that visually, but
you lose all this other stuff.

And that's kind of where,
again, you get the clients.

It's really about you're
going to kiss a hundred frogs.

You might get one good client at
Upwork, but it's just part of your

regular marketing and sales cycle.

Matt: Is Gutenberg as big a thorn
in the side of WordPress, at least

from your perspective, maybe in
the enterprise market, as a lot

of people make it out to be?

Victor: So for anyone, I'm going to
just like caveat in the beginning for

anyone who's worked in enterprise,
they know that marketing is a hundred

percent detached from engineering.

When I'm at news corporate,
one of these big publishers.

I have God mode.

I can run all these packages
that turn off the extra H one.

So no one puts in two H ones.

I can turn off these blocks.

I can block people installing
plugins, block people from doing this.

So that is a completely different team
when you're working in the engineering

team, building the application
that is used for content entry or,

you know, e commerce, et cetera.

When you're working with a small business
or marketing, it is a huge thorn in the

side because a lot of the times most
of the clients you're getting are not

actually engineering professional clients.

They are clients who were sold blocks or,
you know, whatever these, they were sold.

which I like some of these cadence.

They're pretty slick.

I use cadence.

I use 20 for my own websites, which
I haven't updated a long time, but

I'm working on, I have three weeks
off this coming benefit enterprise of

three weeks off this coming month, to
work and update my own websites and

I'll use them, but I would hate for a
client to have them because the client

then it's not the client going to you.

Hey, we want to implement this feature.

It's the client saying, I broke my site
by putting three different builders on it.

Can you make it look like this?

And that's the crux of Gutenberg.

Gutenberg is kind of sold
as this Swiss army knife.

And I don't listen.

There's some great people out
there in the Gutenberg space.

I'm not going to name specific ones, but
they're like, the web should be free.

Let me design the way I want to design.

Let it be free.

I hate when people say that
nothing should be free.

You don't go to cars in a highway
and say, let me be free on the road.

Let me veer into traffic the way I want.

No, this is a utilitarian
system that should be.

Composed in a particular way.

So if you're someone who needs to
run a business, I think Gutenberg

is terrible because it's too much.

It's like, just think
about it as a highway.

And that's like a lot of the Gutenberg
people and I, Richard Tabor, he is, and

I love Richie's on Rich, Rich's stuff.

'cause he writes great stuff.

He worked, I think he's still, I dunno
if he's still automatic, he has some

of the best stuff out there, but he's
one of those, let's call it like very.

Free person about Gutenberg like
let people do what they want.

No, that's we don't let them do with
cars We don't let them do it with you

know in the United States with guns
and maybe we do I don't know But you

got to control things and so that's
where I think Gutenberg if you have the

controls is beautiful But if you just let
Gutenberg be free if you do free range

Gutenberg, you're running for trouble.

Matt: Some of that WordPress
chaos of like, what is this thing?

How do I use it?

Who should be using it is part of
the success of WordPress, right?

Because anyone can grab it, start
doing things, but then obviously the

particular challenge is if you could do
anything and you run into these issues

that, that you just mentioned, what
direction should the core team take it?

Should they make it for the
end user or should they make

it for the web professional?

Victor: I mean I mean In the end,
how are you benefiting an end user

by allowing 2h ones by default?

In the end, how are you benefiting,
how are you benefiting, a user by

letting them put the header below?

Like, and when I say the header, I mean
like the HTML element of header on the

footer, why are we letting them do that?

How are we benefiting them?

And I think that's the thing you get
the free range WordPress people who are

like, well, maybe I want to, because
in the end you get, and you know,

engineers have had this conversation.

You have a lot of engineers.

In PHP space, you say it as well.

They're like best practices and design
patterns were just thought up by some guy.

Yes, you're right, but they've been
adopted by the world and the internet

is no longer a free range place.

It is controlled by the walled gardens
of SEO and Facebook and Google and

Bing and all these other things.

So in reality, we're no longer
making free range websites.

We're making a website that
has to fit into an ecosystem.

So I think we should make core.

Build the best tools for end
users to fit into the ecosystem.

And if you're letting people have
multiple H ones and you're letting people

put the header and the footer in the
header, you're not doing them any favors.

Matt: Is SEO dead?

Victor: SEO is never dead and
SEO, I even hate the word because

it's semantic internet in the end.

Like, listen, I build like a lot of
internal tools at our organizations

and those internal tools might be
something like, you know, we have,

at Sotheby's we have auctions, right?

And so those auctions, they have to
be managed, they have to be searched

for, they have to be cataloged.

We're doing SEO, right?

Because we're like, how
do I look up an auction?

How do I look up a product?

How do I look up an item?

How do I look at whatever that's SEO.

So as long as you're, but I think the
SEO of 10 ways to use WordPress and one

you never thought of, I hope that dies
because that is the frustrating thing.

When I'm someone like, I just want
to Google, Gutenberg, disable, 2H1s.

I'm going to stick with
that one to keep it simple.

Disable 2H1s.

It's like 10 things you must
clean up in your Gutenberg editor.

10 things.

It's like, and it's, that drives me nuts.

Whereas now I can go to chat GPT or,
you know, in any of these systems

or, you know, I can use a download.

I actually use a dash, which is a
local, downloads the WordPress codecs.

I use dash with my own LLM and I
connect anthropic to dash and I use,

and I type in a command and I type in.

Remove H1 and it generates
it automatically.

And now I don't use Google
anymore for that reason.

I have my own local internet.

And so, that is hugely beneficial, but SEO
is not dead because, and again, I think

it's that also selling it in that way.

Like I sell like a lot of user
portals where like we'll have a client

and they'll have like an internal
user portal and I'm like, Hey.

They're like, Oh, why can't my subscribers
find the course they're looking for

because you didn't add the proper metadata
to all of your videos and that metadata

you need to use search WP or relevancy and
we're going to make it now and we're going

to reduce the churn of the subscribers to
your user site and that's, you know, and

that's something that is still SEO, but
it's not the, you know, Air, you know, SEO

that marketers are doing to rank websites.

It still is semantic usage cases, use
cases for AI LMS, or, you know, bots.

Matt: I bring that up, one, because
you brought it up, but second,

I think a lot of folks, I think
you were kind of hinting at this.

I think another reason for the adoption of
WordPress, over any proprietary hosting.

CMS, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow.

I think a lot of it is particularly like
we can own this experience, not because

of the freedom of it, but because we have
particular SEO, strategies in place and

WordPress allows us to do these things.

At least that's the way that
I've always perceived it.

So I've seen a lot of people select
WordPress because They can control

the slug, the server side of things.

They have Yoast SEO and all
these other various plugins.

And for, you know, a little bit of core
WordPress has that essence of SEO in it.

And I'm really curious on how
the SEO market shifts to how that

impacts the adoption of WordPress,
at least for a certain silo of

user, you know, 2025 and the future.

Yeah, so that's always something that
I'm always thinking of is like what that

world of SEO impact has on WordPress
as a publishing platform No direct

question, but I don't know if you have a

Victor: no, I still think
that's going to be important.

So I just, my partner is a artist,
a very accomplished artist.

And you know, some of her
work, she's gotten 3d scan.

She's gotten it scanned.

Like, you know, she does these
giant eight by 10 paintings.

and once they're auctioned off and once
they're sold to the larger market, she'll

never see it again, but I'm helping her.

And it's funny because she was
like, couldn't I use, I don't know.

What was it called?

She brought up an old, on Mac, that,
you know, there used to be these

database systems that you could have
in your computer or like, what's the

thing key was something in Microsoft.

There used to be these kind of
one note or like these things

where you store a database.

Right.

But what I

Matt: access database for

Victor: Access.

That's it.

Access.

Right.

And I

Matt: I Am I used to make a lot
of money as a young freelancer

selling access database

Victor: But what I said to her
was, I was like, the benefit of

using WordPress for your website.

'cause even she's not,
she's very internet.

She's an internet person.

And she literally was like, Hey, like
let's, do we wanna use WordPress?

I said, listen, the benefit
of WordPress is this.

Even if WordPress were to get
and her version, 'cause we're.

We're creating our custom post type
of artwork and that artwork, we were

able to add all this metadata, the
dates, the characters in the art,

the type of painting, the type of a
medium, the colors, all these things.

And of course we use a little AI
to go and read the colors from the

painting to auto fill the metadata.

That was pretty neat.

and.

And that benefited her because if all
of a sudden she were to move away from

WordPress, she could put it into a digital
asset management system like Cloudinary.

But now also what I told her was
you adding all this rich metadata

means that now if anyone searches for
your artwork or your images, they're

gonna be able to find it easier.

And when I was, cause I did go
and look at other things and

I was like, well, she can't.

I would have to do two things at once,
because again, I'm building a digital

asset management system using WordPress
for her art, and I'm also building

her a website so her art can be found.

Well, and she doesn't need to be found.

Her art is at the level where
it's sold by auctioneers, etc.

But just, you know, for her friends
to go and find art or for like

her to network with other artists.

But I was saying to her, like, I
would have to maintain two systems.

I would have to go and build.

A system that stores this data and then I
have to build a three systems, a connector

to your CMS, whether it be Webflow,
whatever, and Webflow isn't easy to do it.

Squarespace is not easy to do it.

Nothing else is easy.

So in the end, WordPress has the
ubiquity, and that's one of the

things WordPress still does have the
ubiquity of throw rock in Brooklyn.

You're gonna find a librarian.

A editor, or a kid who was in a
rock band who's used it before.

Right.

And so I think the ubiquity of the
interface of WordPress still is great.

because it's a lot of learning curve to
learn, to use a lot of other systems.

And that's why I think WordPress still
shines in from an SEO perspective.

Think of it that way.

These SEO tools, if I were working in
the SEO space and I was working with a

publisher, I would say, look, all the
work that you do updating this content.

And getting really rich metadata using
something like a Yoast SE or Rank Math,

that metadata is going to then make your
API richer when you're doing your own

custom LLM and serving that as a RAG,
which Retrieval Access Generative System.

because in the end, rags, they're
not as smart as everyone thinks.

They need to be trained.

They need the data.

The better that the data is, met,
you know, the metadata is the

better that data can be chunked and
then served into the LLM system.

And that's where, again, that's SEO
and SEO teams need to get better at

spinning that and communicating that.

Matt: LLM we're just dancing around AI

Victor: Yeah.

Sorry.

Matt: I want to dive into that
as one of our final topics here.

I'm building things, Victor, with AI.

I don't know a lick of job, well
I do now, because I've been like

seeping myself in it, but prior to,
never been able to build a React app

stand alone with my own feature set.

Never could even dream of that.

Now I'm doing it in minutes.

What is the impact you see on AI
augmenting or you know, taking

away from, the freelancer out there
trying to build WordPress websites.

Victor: I think anyone who did anything
that was repetitive action is cooked.

So like it, but listen, they
were getting cooked before.

LLMs, because if you were the person who
all you did was compose, I will compose

five semantic HTML5 templates for you.

Well, VS Code came around, you do
hashtag bang, I think it's like you

just do the bang symbol and tab, and
it does a full semantic HTML5 doc type.

If you installed a bootstrap
library, you could type in xs.

3 and it would give you three
extra small columns and then

you just fill it in, right?

The LLM is only accelerating that.

Right.

So I think those people are cooked.

People who generated, Hey, you know,
I have clients, who do a video.

Now all they do is make a YouTube video
and think about the YouTube pipeline.

They make a YouTube video.

The transcription is AI.

The description is AI.

The thumbnail is AI.

They now turn that into a blog post.

That's AI.

that blog post has 10.

Pull quotes that they
could turn into 10 tweets.

That's AI.

They need to make 10 TikTok
videos off of the video.

That's AI They need to add captions.

That's AI in the end.

It's one person overseeing that AI
pipeline But all those jobs have

been deleted because there's no
video editor going, finding clips.

There's no video editor going
and adding all the translation.

There's no person listening
and writing the transcription.

I mean, you get better quality, but
the quality, the difference between

95 percent accuracy versus 99 percent
accuracy is not as great as just having

someone go and QA it for an hour.

You have to kind of sit down
and think about the cost.

Those jobs are cooked.

Whereas I think, and I, you know, in
Upwork, the higher end jobs, they're

willing to pay more money because
It's where they're saying like, Hey,

we cooked up this application with a
developer and got to the MVP with AI.

Now we want to deploy it.

We keep getting rejected
from the app store.

We keep getting rejected on this.

Oh, by the way, our developer put the
API keys in the GitHub repo because

the AI didn't tell them not to.

And so we got hacked.

And I think that on the higher end,
that's where the money's going to be.

Cause it's going to be you as a developer.

And I think it was like
this guy, he's great.

Santiago something.

He's on Twitter.

He's a Cuban guy.

And you said, your job is not
getting, and I disagree with him.

Your job is taken by AI.

If you're a video editor, everyone
I know in video editing, they're

like, they're doing terribly.

And again, because all these AI tools
are coming out, but he's talking

to developers and he says, your
job is not going to be taken by AI.

Your job is going to be taken by
the person who knows how to use AI.

And that really is for
someone like myself.

Like you're right.

Like I used to have to go and go, okay.

Okay.

I hadn't done a react
application in a while.

I'm like, let me go.

Okay.

I have to go get, create react app, go
to the documentation, not anthropic.

I need to create a basic react application
that tells me this, it's going to go into

this API, generate this, and then this.

But then as a developer, I had to
know, you know, it came back and

I was like, you made that call,
but you didn't ask for API key.

Where are you getting this data?

It's like, Oh, we use mock data.

And I'm like, okay.

So like.

use the API key, use the API key, but
in the API key failed, and I said, I'm

running on a local host without SSH.

It's not going to work.

You need to use a fallback for the
mock data so that when it falls back,

it uses the mock data and it should
display a warning at the top to say

mock data being used so that I know that
when I'm running the application, it's

not and you have to know that stuff.

If you're as a developer, if
you've been working long enough.

You know, those things like you're
the one who has to think like that.

So it's that's the high level
developers are going to do really

well with AI, in my opinion.

But the low level ones, again, if you
were doing anything that it was you

just repeating yourself over and over
again, that job is going to be gone soon.

Matt: I've been building these little
ad hoc react apps and the biggest thing

that I've noticed the difference is
I've tried a bunch of platforms as I,

you know, force myself to learn this
stuff kind of makes me feel like when I

was learning like thesis and page lines
and site origin from way back in page

building days in WordPress when you're
like, I don't even know what I'm doing.

I'm just building these pages.

I don't know what's
happening on the front end.

I'm just dragging and
dropping in WordPress Allah.

I don't know, 15, 18 years
ago, whenever that was.

so I'm building these little apps
and what I have found is a new found

respect, for this monolithic app.

If I can call it that a monolithic
WordPress app, because while I can

build these little ad hoc things,
every single one is different.

The way that this AI is
generating it, it's recommending.

Database structure to me differently.

It's recommending frameworks differently.

It's recommending icons
differently, right?

Like, and what icons it's going
to use to, to make these apps.

What that has done to me is like, wow,
I can build these things really quick,

but there is a inconsistency across the
board and a real heavy sustainability.

factor like you were just saying
there, you might lose these little

tasks to AI, but there still needs to
be this human oversight to make sure

it's working correctly because, okay,
great, I can build these little apps,

but they're all different and they're
all going to be maintained differently.

Whereas that newfound respect to
the monolithic app of WordPress

to me is like, oh, I could.

I could just use WordPress for my
user management, for my database

structure, for my posts and my pages.

and I'll just use AI to augment that.

Don't try to use AI to replace
it because there's thousands

of people overseeing WordPress.

but use it and then build
it with WordPress and then

accelerate it potentially with AI.

That's a thinking I have for the next
few years, a couple of years, two to

three years with AI and WordPress.

because.

Yeah, I mean, I can just see
that as extending WordPress

instead of replacing WordPress.

That's my sort of perception of this

Victor: I don't think AI can replace
WordPress because the thing I originally

said, which we were talking about, which
was, Hey, we are going to be doing, are

we using blocks or are we using, and I
know Bloxy, are we using Bloxy, are we

using, Cadence, are we using one of those?

And a lot of the times clients don't
even know if they're using Cadence.

Like they bought the website
originally from someone, then

they're like, get this AI.

WordPress builder and then the WordPress
builder goes installs another page

builder and then all of a sudden when
they go install and this is I find it is

why I like accessibility and analytics
every single time it all of a sudden

gets to the, AI and analytics, AI,
the analytics and accessibility part,

they go and install an accessibility
plugin or an AI, an analytics plugin and

they're like, why isn't it seeing that?

Oh, because The analytics plugin can't
tell whether you're using Bloxy or this

and you have three page builders installed
and one made the header and one made

this and so when you tick the box in the
analytics tool that says I use Bloxy.

It's going to only write all the analytics
for block C, but then all of a sudden

you're using cadence for this and this,
for that, then that's what AI does.

Like you were saying before, like I
had AI bringing in like three or four

different libraries and I was like, Hey,
please use this library instead because

I'm building it for this application
stack and I need to use the library.

And then it tried to argue with me and
it's like, well, this library is better.

And I'm like, get out of junior developer.

Like I don't like we're
using this library, you know.

And so, yeah, the AI, it
backtalks sometimes and you got

to like, you know, correct it.

So, yeah.

Matt: Ramirez, propping up
WordPress in the enterprise and

fighting the good battle of AI.

Thanks for hanging out today.

Where can folks find you
on the web to say thanks?

Victor: you can just, Victor
Ramirez WordPress brings me up,

all the, I have done my own SEO.

Let me actually double check that and
see if that still works, but if you

type Victor Ramirez WordPress, you
could, then you can find me on Twitter.

I'm not really active.

I don't know if anyone uses
Facebook anymore, but yeah,

you could find me on there.

Victor Ramirez WordPress, my website's
there, some YouTube videos, and my,

my Twitter account is still there.

I'm sticking with Twitter.

you can go and find my Twitter if
you type Victor Ramirez WordPress.

Matt: Awesome stuff.

That'll be in the show notes
because, you know, humans still

write the show notes here.

It's TheWPMinute.

com, TheWPMinute.

com slash subscribe to stay connected.

We'll see you in the next episode.