🗞 ICYMI: Bench fails, WordPress pauses, $MIRA skyrockets

Last week was full of news that should make us all happy to be indie hackers.

Popular accounting startup Bench suddenly shut down on Friday, just a few years after the VCs on its board took over the company and ousted its original founder so they could take the company in the “right direction.” Which was apparently straight into the ground.

Meanwhile, WordPress.org dictator founder Matt Mullenweg continued to demonstrate just how much muscle an indie founder can flex by putting operations on pause for the holidays, prompting calls to democratize WordPress's governance.

On a happier note, indie hacker Marc Lou surpassed 100,000 subscribers on YouTube after just 10 months on the platform, proving that building in public can pay off on platforms other than X

And founder Siqi Chen made millions of dollars from a meme coin in the span of a few hours after a series of heart-rending tweets about his daughter's illness went viral. The whole story is equal parts touching, inspiring, and confusing.

Last but not least, investors have been talking about the incredible growth of AI sales rep startups, many of whch are going from $0 to $1M in ARR in under a year. AI salespeople… good news for AI founders, but bad news for all of our inboxes.

We hope you all go into the new year well-rested and inspired. Cheers!

—Channing

P.S. We're testing out sending weekly recap emails like this one every Monday, to help you catch up on anything you missed, and we'd love your feedback!

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