On Monday, Bluesky, a Twitter-backed venture creating a decentralized social media standard, established itself as a public benefit LLC (PBLLC) and named its first three board members: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Jabber/XMPP creator Jeremie Miller and Bluesky CEO Jay Graber.
For reference, PBLLC is a for-profit entity that has statutory requirements to be transparent, accountable and uphold its public benefit purpose—in this case, creating a new social media standard outside any single tech giant’s control.
Bluesky came out of stealth via a from Dorsey in December 2019, and the last time Bluesky hit the headlines was in August 2021, when Graber was revealed as its CEO. At the time, she stated her priorities were to hire a small team starting with a protocol developer and a web developer.
Bluesky has already mapped the terrain of the existing decentralized web ecosystem and outlined what open protocols for social media should be included and the technologies it will be built on. Currently, the venture is focusing on building and releasing a prototype.
Dorsey shocked the tech world late last year when he announced his decision to step down as Twitter’s CEO but this most recent news signifies he isn’t quite done with social media.
He remains the CEO of his other publicly-traded company, Square, and at the time said he decided to fully remove himself from the social media giant to give now-CEO Parag Agrawal “the space he needs to lead.” Dorsey added, “I believe it is critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder’s influence or direction.”
