It seems like Bluesky’s most distinguished backer is now not on its board.
On Saturday, Jack Dorsey posted on X about grants for open protocols from his philanthropic Start Small initiative. This prompted somebody to ask Dorsey if he was nonetheless on the Bluesky board, and he responded with a terse “no.” Dorsey didn’t reply any of the follow-up posts asking him to clarify his departure.
It’s not clear when Dorsey left the board; as of Sunday morning, Bluesky’s company FAQ nonetheless identifies him as a board member. We’ve reached out to the corporate for affirmation.
Update: Bluesky has printed the next assertion:
We sincerely thank Jack for his assist funding and initiating the bluesky undertaking. Today, Bluesky is flourishing as an open supply social community working on atproto, the decentralized protocol we’ve constructed.
With Jack’s departure, we’re trying to find a brand new board member for the Bluesky public profit firm who shares our dedication to constructing a social community that places folks in command of their expertise. More to come back!
Dorsey first introduced Bluesky in 2019, again when he was nonetheless CEO of Twitter. He wrote that Twitter (now X) was “funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.”
Since then, Bluesky has turn out to be an impartial public profit company, led by CEO Jay Graber, with VC backing, and it opened to most people in February.
Dorsey seems to have deleted his Bluesky account sooner or later final yr, although his departure was solely acknowledged on the time by a smattering of social media posts. (He additionally deleted his Instagram account.) Despite this, he remained the largest identify related to the undertaking.
Back on X, Dorsey has had a reasonably lively weekend. In addition to dropping company information, he’s additionally weighed in on the meat between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, unfollowed almost each different account, and posted, “don’t depend on corporations to grant you rights. defend them yourself using freedom technology. (you’re on one)”
