Toni Schneider has formally taken over as CEO of Bluesky after serving as interim CEO. He previously led Automattic, the company behind WordPress, and joined Bluesky as an investor through his venture firm True Ventures before stepping into the leadership role.
Bluesky operates as two interconnected entities: a consumer social networking app and AT Protocol, an underlying open standard that allows anyone to build compatible social products. Schneider describes the company’s mission as creating social media that serves the public good through open, interoperable networks. The protocol has attracted over a thousand apps built by third parties, creating an ecosystem Schneider calls the ATmosphere.
A central challenge for Bluesky involves balancing the needs of its consumer app users with the broader vision of a decentralized protocol ecosystem. The company currently employs approximately 50 people organized into small teams focused on the core app, developer tools, and new AI-driven products. Schneider emphasizes making decisions about reversible versus irreversible changes, with protocol-level decisions requiring longer-term thinking than typical product decisions.
The company is actively working to divest control of the protocol itself. Bluesky is handing governance of the identity directory to a Swiss nonprofit foundation and submitting AT Protocol to the Internet Engineering Task Force as an official standards track. This mirrors Automattic’s relationship with WordPress, where the company supports but does not control the underlying open-source platform.
Bluesky plans to introduce private, community-based spaces within the protocol in the coming months, expanding beyond its current public-only infrastructure. This evolution will enable features more similar to Reddit-style communities while maintaining the interoperability advantages of the open protocol. The company is soliciting community feedback on how these features should work.
Regarding monetization, Schneider indicated the company will begin generating revenue later this year through a model focused on enabling creators and publishers to earn from the network rather than extracting value through advertising. The approach aims to benefit the entire ATmosphere ecosystem rather than just the Bluesky company itself.
On the question of Bluesky’s current reputation as primarily attracting progressive users, Schneider expressed a desire to expand the platform’s appeal across different communities and demographics. He pointed to recent success in attracting sports content and audiences as evidence the platform can serve diverse user bases beyond its current political associations.
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