Toni Schneider is the the CEO of Automattic, the company behind the Wordpress platform. Before Automattic, Toni was the CEO of Oddpost which was acquired by Yahoo. While at Yahoo, Toni was the executive who lead the creation of Yahoo Developer Network.

Dre Armeda – Since leaving your position with Yahoo! back in 2006 and joining Automattic as the CEO, what are some of the most exciting products/events/happenings you’ve seen take place in the past 3 years?

Toni Schneider - From an Automattic POV I’d say the rise of WordPress.com and the emergence of WordCamps. In the tech industry as a whole, it’s the overall pace of innovation that continues to blow me away.

Toni Schneider, CEO, Automattic

What is one thing you’ve learned while being at Automattic that has made you a better CEO?

A brand new thing that I had never done before was figuring out how to build a distributed company, where team members work from places all over the world. That’s been a great learning experience for me. I love how much personal freedom the distributed model gives people. One of our “Automatticians” told us just yesterday that he is going to Chile for 40 days. He has rented an apartment and will work from there. That’s the kind of thing you can do in a distributed organization. The challenge is to create a sense of teamwork and common purpose despite being spread so far apart.

What are a few big items that you envision for WordPress.com in 2010?

I’d say continued international expansion as well as tighter integration of third party services and content to make people’s WordPress.com sites more of a hub for their online activities.

In your opinion, why has WordPress been so successful without a marketing team?

Simple: Great word of mouth :)

WP.com VIP has been a huge success, in our eyes. How do you see the VIP hosting solution evolving in 2010?

We’re going to put VIP hosting and support into a more combined offering. That way we can offer VIP level services to people whether they are hosted on our infrastructure or elsewhere.

Automattic employees do not all work out of the Automattic office in San Francisco. What communication tools does Automattic employ and why are they effective? Do you see room for any improvement to make them more efficient?

We’ve tried lots of tools. The two that work best for us are IRC and P2 (P2 Theme). We use IRC for on-going daily group communication (and Skype for 1-on-1) and we have about a dozen internal P2s to discuss and keep track of status of various projects.

When did you first start “blogging” and what was it about?

I started my first blog in 2004 on Typepad. I had gotten my first camera phone and started photo blogging little tidbits from my daily life which was lots of fun.

When you’re not aggressively (viciously, some cool word insert here) working on WordPress, what do you enjoy doing?

I spend as much time as possible with my family. Our kids are growing up fast and I’m enjoying every minute of it. We go boogie boarding, skiing, go-karting, hiking, camping, lots of great stuff. I also like to geek out over cars (in all shapes and forms: toni.org/car-museum)

Can you hint at the next big add-ons and secret features of WordPress.com? Come on Toni, give us the skinny :)

Nope :)

What is your favorite car and what makes it so special to you?

Currently it’s my 1985 Toyota Landcruiser. I like it because it’s an iconic design, it’s bulletproof (not literally), and it runs on biodiesel (made from recycled kitchen grease).

Gravatar hit 1 billion gravatars this past March. What other milestones has Automattic hit or are on the horizon?

Yeah, Gravatar serves billions of avatar requests a day, which is amazing. Another number that blows people away is that over 220 million people visit a WordPress.com blog in any given month. That makes us one of the 10 largest web sites in the world. PollDaddy has been growing really impressively as well. It reaches over 117 million people a month!

Through your eyes, what has been the greatest invention of 2009? (not just with WordPress, but of the entire world)

Too early to tell. Check out this cool engine though: EcoMotors

Can you tell us a little bit about CodePoet and what your vision is for the WordPress consulting world?

CodePoet is a hub for WordPress related consulting services. Today, it’s a place to find people who can help you build a beautiful WordPress site. Over time, we’d like to make it a great resource for consultants who want to learn how to get the most out of WordPress as a platform.

Thank you Toni for vibing out with us!

Do you have some questions or comments for Toni? Feel free to leave comments below and we’ll see if we can get Toni to answer a few :)