Jay Graber is stepping down as head of Bluesky, the social media platform solely introduced to WIRED. Enterprise capitalist Toni Schneider would be the interim CEO till a everlasting substitute is discovered.
“As Bluesky matures, the corporate wants a seasoned operator centered on scaling and execution, whereas I return to what I do greatest: constructing new issues,” Graber wrote in a statement in regards to the personnel change.
Graber joined Bluesky in 2019, when it was a analysis venture inside Twitter centered on growing a decentralized framework for the social internet. She turned the corporate’s first chief govt officer in 2021, when it spun out into an unbiased entity. She oversaw the platform’s exceptional rise and the growing pains it skilled because it remodeled from a unusual Twitter offshoot to a full-fledged various to X.
Schneider tells WIRED that he intends to assist Bluesky “develop into not simply one of the best open social app, however the basis for an entire new technology of user-owned networks.”
Schneider, who will proceed working as a associate on the enterprise capital agency True Ventures whereas at Bluesky, was beforehand CEO of the WordPress guardian firm, Automattic, from 2006 to 2014. He additionally served as its CEO once more in 2024 whereas prime govt Matt Mullenweg went on a sabbatical. Throughout that point, Schneider met Graber and have become an adviser to Bluesky’s management. In a blog post asserting his new function, Schneider mentioned he plans to emphasise scaling, describing his job as “to assist arrange Bluesky’s subsequent part of development.”
This isn’t the tip for Graber and Bluesky. She is going to transition to develop into the corporate’s chief innovation officer, a task centered on Bluesky’s expertise stack moderately than its enterprise operations. The place was created for her. Graber, who started her profession as a software program engineer, has all the time sounded essentially the most enthusiastic when discussing Bluesky’s expertise moderately than its income streams.
Bluesky’s board of administrators will appoint the following everlasting CEO. The members embody Jabber founder Jeremie Miller, crypto-focused VC Kinjal Shah, TechDirt founder Mike Masnick, and Graber. (Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was initially a part of the board however give up in 2024.) This implies Graber could have enter on her successor. The expertise search continues to be in early levels.
It’s a pivotal second for Bluesky. The corporate discovered success by positioning itself as a progressive replacement for Elon Musk’s X. That helped gas the platform’s rise as X’s hard-right ideological flip prompted some customers to hunt new social networks. In 2025, Bluesky grew from 25 million customers to over 40 million, in accordance with its annual Transparency Report. Its crew is optimistic it will possibly proceed increasing whereas staying true to its roots. Masnick says Schneider’s tenure at Automattic “proves you construct an actual enterprise round open software program.”
So far as social platforms go, although, it’s nonetheless a distinct segment providing, and one perpetually subject to pundit-class grumblings about the way it’s too woke or not woke sufficient. (Simply final week, in a conversation with WIRED, Dorsey mentioned he wasn’t pleased with the platform due to “ideology.”) Meta’s competing app, Threads, has roughly 400 million users, or roughly 10 instances extra energetic accounts than Bluesky. Even when it’s not taken with chasing the kind of hockey-stick development historically favored in Silicon Valley, the corporate does must persuade extra individuals and establishments to make use of its platform if it desires to stake a declare to the function of digital commons.
