Jay Graber became the first CEO of Bluesky in 2021 when the network and its AT Protocol spun out from life as a Twitter research project to go independent, but now she’s leaving that role, as reported previously by Wired. While venture capitalist and former Automattic CEO Toni Schneider steps in as interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found, Graber says she will become Bluesky’s Chief Innovation Officer, focused on building new things for a platform that has gone from 30 million users about a year ago, to 40 million currently.
According to Graber, “Toni believes deeply in the Bluesky mission, and has been an advisor to the company and me personally for over a year. Both Automattic and True Ventures are also investors in Bluesky, and support the development of a more open, user-driven internet.”
In a blog post of his own, Schneider writes that while he was initially skeptical about decentralized social, he became a believer in it after meeting Graber and COO Rose Wang two years ago. “The commitment to an open, user-controlled social web isn’t going anywhere. You own your identity, your data, your graph. If anything, we’re doubling down…. Open platforms only thrive when third-party builders can trust them. We will continue to work on earning that trust and moving towards a fully decentralized system,” writes Schnieder.