Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble
Summary
Nilay Patel interviews Tony Schneider, the new CEO of Bluesky, about balancing the company’s dual focus on its consumer app and the open AT Protocol. Schneider discusses the "Atmosphere" ecosystem, the shift toward private communities, and the challenge of scaling a 50-person team to support thousands of interoperable apps. He compares the current social web landscape to the early days of the internet, emphasizing long-term protocol decisions over short-term product changes, while addressing how Bluesky maintains its text-first identity amidst competitors pivoting to video.
Topics discussed
Sponsors: ServiceNow and CrowdStrike
Intro: Tony Schneider and the open social web
The vision: App Protocol and the Atmosphere
Tony's background and transition to CEO
Decision-making: Time scales and reversibility
Balancing the app and the protocol
StandardSite and cross-platform content
Company structure and team organization
Composable moderation and trust & safety
Private data and community-based moderation
Sponsors: Quo, Framer, and ServiceNow
Prioritization and irreversible decisions
Protocol evolution and private data features
Open web philosophy and traffic sharing
Supporting non-text content and link cards
Decentralization, identity, and governance
Sponsors: IBM Quantum, Upwork, and Indeed
Monetization models and avoiding ads
Ecosystem growth and building new apps
AI in software development and product velocity
Interoperability with Mastodon and ActivityPub
User demographics, politics, and future outlook
Outro and final sponsor: Uber Eats
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