According to GeekWire, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber is steering the decentralized social network, which now has over 40 million users and a team of about 30 employees. The project was initially funded by Twitter in December 2019 under Jack Dorsey, but Graber insisted on legal independence, a prescient move before Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover severed ties and a $13 million agreement. Graber, a former digital rights activist and coder, runs the company with a “high agency, low ego” philosophy from a base in Seattle. The core technology is the AT Protocol, an open standard designed to let users theoretically take their social graph to other apps. While smaller than X’s 500M or Threads’ 300M users, Bluesky’s ambition is to be foundational infrastructure, not just a destination.
The forest, not the tree
Here’s the thing that makes Bluesky different, and honestly, why it’s so fascinating. Most tech CEOs talk about building an empire. Graber talks about building soil. She describes Bluesky as “a collective organism” and the protocol as the foundation. The goal isn’t necessarily for the Bluesky app to be the biggest thing ever. It’s for the AT Protocol to endure, so that other apps can bloom on top of it. That’s a radically different mindset in an industry obsessed with walled gardens and user lock-in. Basically, she’s trying to build a social network you can actually leave without losing your friends. How often can you say that about Facebook or X?
Pragmatic idealism is hard
Graber calls herself a “pragmatic idealist,” and that tension is everywhere. The idealist wanted a pure, decentralized protocol. The pragmatist knew they had to “catch the moment” and build something people would actually use, even if it meant some centralization at the start. This even caused a split with early backer Jack Dorsey, who wanted more purity. And this is the eternal struggle for decentralized tech: the trade-off between ideological purity and mass adoption. Mastodon has been around for years and has what, 10 million registered users? It’s hard. Graber’s approach of starting somewhat centralized to gain traction is smart, but it risks just creating another slightly-more-open walled garden if they’re not relentless about pushing true portability. The “Protocols, Not Platforms” vision is inspiring, but the history of tech is littered with open standards that got crushed by proprietary networks.
AI agents and the next battle
Graber’s view on AI perfectly extends her philosophy. She’s not debating if AI is good or bad. She’s focused on who controls it. She imagines a future where you bring your own AI agent to a social network, much like Bluesky lets you choose an algorithm. “Maybe you can even run this at home in your closet,” she says. That’s the dream: personal AI that protects your privacy, not platform AI that exploits your data. But let’s be real. That’s a massive technical and usability hurdle for most people. The convenience of a centralized, corporate AI will be incredibly seductive. Fighting that tide requires building tools that are genuinely easier and better for the end user, not just more ethically pure. Can a team of 30 really pave that road against the trillion-dollar platform companies? It’s a monumental task.
A world without Caesars
The profile paints a compelling picture of Graber: low-ego, builder-focused, and stubborn in her vision. The anecdote about her wearing a “Mundus sine caesaribus” (a world without Caesars) shirt as a direct jab at Zuckerberg’s “Aut Zuck aut nihil” tee is perfectly on-brand. She’s planting seeds for a different digital ecosystem. But I have to be skeptical. Decentralization is messy. User experience often suffers. Moderation at scale on an open protocol is a nightmare, as detailed in that 2025 New Yorker piece. And let’s not forget, her company’s namesake, the Greater Seattle region’s blue skies, are ironically a rarity. Is a decentralized social layer the same? A beautiful ideal that’s hard to find in practice? Maybe. But after decades of social media Caesars, someone trying to build a world without them is a story worth watching. Even if the success is in the attempt.
