So, to summarize what we've learned on the second day of trying to figure out:
Who actually owns #Bluesky?
The company represents that Jay Graber and the employees own Bluesky. This is misleading. In actuality, Bluesky has a host of tech VC shareholders (https://accessipos.com/bluesky-stock-ipo/) and is about to get more in a stunning funding round led by Bain Capital valuing the company at $700M (https://www.businessinsider.com/x-competitor-bluesky-valuation-new-funding-round-2025-1).
So who are the current owners of Bluesky? Read on...
Back in 2023: Bob Young (Red Hat), Amjad Masad (Replit), Heather Meeker, Jeremy Johnson, Outset Capital, Mana Industries, Automattic, Protocol Labs, Katelyn Donnelly, Ali Evans, Stav Erez, Brad Fitzpatrick, Atlas Benjelloun, and Abdul Ly.
Earlier this year: Blockchain Capital, Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Amir Shevat (Darkmode Ventures), and Joe Beda (Kubernetes).
The list is a who's who in tech with ties to all the principle edgelords.
That's who owns Bluesky.
What we still don't know about who owns #Bluesky is what the percentage ownership of each entity is. Nor do we know if there are different classes of stock. We also do not know if there are any overhanging equity obligations like convertable debt or warrants. And we don't know if there are any obligations to founder Jack Dorsey, and if so, in what form.
@mastodonmigration usually ~10% is left for employees.
- C suite each get 1%
- MD or equivalent each get 0.25-0.5%
- average engineer maybe 0.1%
But we just don't know.
One very troubling thing is their representation that the company is owned by Jay Graber and the employees.
It is not clear how many of the progressive voices flocking there, and establishing the basis for the current astronomical valuation, would have done so had they known who actually owned the company.
@mastodonmigration i mean both jack and blockchain capital are crypto bros so you should assume they're lying about everything
It should be very problematic.
It is hard to understand how progressives keep falling for this same scam. Guess people just want to believe what they hear.
@mastodonmigration @cryptadamist Over and over and over
@mastodonmigration so, basically that's a lot of words to say "we don't know who owns Bluesky"
@mackuba @mastodonmigration ‘we don’t know’ differs from ‘we’re uncertain how much’. We have a list. And we know Bain and the other names claim some vast ownership majority, vs. a likely tiny fraction for employees. Are we sure? Yeah, since there’s no way oligarchs care if they aren’t promised billions.
@cascheranno @mastodonmigration > And we know Bain and the other names claim some vast ownership majority, vs. a likely tiny fraction for employees
Wait wait hold on, we know that? Where did you read that? From what the team has been saying, my assumption is that the majority belongs to Jay & co., I just don't know how much more than 50%.
@mackuba @mastodonmigration hahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha
Pull the other leg; it plays ‘ein kleine nachtmusik’.
@mackuba @mastodonmigration by all means, point to a tech startup in the last 20 years that revealed shareholders (typically after going public) with staff / developers controlling more than 20% of shares.
"From what the team has been saying..." is doing a lot of work here.
The point is the what they have been saying is deliberately obtuse, so we really have no idea, and have every reason to be suspect. If they wanted to be transparent and trustworthy all they need to do is be transparent and forthcoming.
@mastodonmigration @cascheranno e.g. one example thread from one of the lead guys from the team:
(to be clear, guy with the handle "bsky.ceo" is not from the team, surprisingly )
And you find that reassuring?
Seems like more smokescreen.
Again if that is all true, why not tell people who the owners are and what percentage ownership everyone has?
It would be much simpler than all this "trust us" stuff.
@mastodonmigration @cascheranno the 2023 status (before last year's blockchain VC round) was that "Jay holds the majority of the equity" https://bsky.app/profile/why.bsky.team/post/3juihbj6zfs2i
@mastodonmigration you’re free to continue with them. The absurdity is pretty-well-documented.
Everyone has seen that statement and it is simply not believable. Or, at the very least, it is a carefully worded statement that leads to deliberate misconceptions.
Rather than issue crytic statements like this, they could just publish the ownership interests of all shareholders, and identify any convertable loans and/or warrants.
They could do that instead of being so cute.
@mastodonmigration @mackuba I read that excerpt as ‘and then a transaction was made’.
It’s not full ‘prior to our deal with the devil, we owned our souls’, but it sure is ‘don’t look behind the curtain, it’s all sunshine and puppy dogs, despite our investors’ contradicting reputation’.
Agreed. It's all nonsense word salad deliberately intended to obscure the issue.
Who Actually Owns Bluesky?
It's a simple question. Why are we supposed to parse cryptic BS from "members of the Bluesky team."