Day 2 of asking:
Who actually owns #Bluesky?
Not some ambiguous statement about Jay Graber and the employees. We know the company has outside investors.
Who are all of Bluesky's shareholders and in what percentages?
We now have learned it matters very much who owns the social media platforms we use. Users and the media must demand transparency from Bluesky on this issue.
It's simple. Who all owns stock and options in the company? Are there any other equity obligations like convertable debt?
For more on this discussion see yesterday's thread:
https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113795462558956994
If you are on Bluesky feel free to ask them who owns the company. See if you can get a straight answer.
Thanks to @bespacific we have some information on who actually owns #Bluesky. And it is pretty illuminating.
Contrary to what the company presents in it's public facing statement that it is owned by Jay Graber and the employees, here is some information on who actually owns Bluesky:
https://accessipos.com/bluesky-stock-ipo/
ref: https://newsie.social/@bespacific/113799684726321892
more...
"On October 24th, 2024, the company announced a Series A funding round that raised $15 million. Series A investors included Blockchain Capital, Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Amir Shevat (Darkmode Ventures), and Joe Beda (Kubernetes).
more...
"They join 2023 Seed round investors Bob Young (Red Hat), Amjad Masad (Replit), Heather Meeker, Jeremy Johnson, Outset Capital, Mana Industries, Automattic, Protocol Labs, Katelyn Donnelly, Ali Evans, Stav Erez, Kris Nóva, Brad Fitzpatrick, Atlas Benjelloun, and Abdul Ly. Shevat and Beda invested in both rounds."
And Bluesky is about to close on a funding round led by Bain Capital that will value the company at $700M.
https://www.businessinsider.com/x-competitor-bluesky-valuation-new-funding-round-2025-1
So not just Jay and the employees.
@mastodonmigration The terminology they use (saying it is owned by “Jay Graeber & the Bluesky Team”) is vague enough that it may not even include employees. I think “the Bluesky Team” is just code for “a few other executives and a bunch of venture capital firms”, but people interpret it as meaning it’s some kind of worker owned cooperative.
Similar in this respect to saying the network is distributed.
When you need to parse the specific language used to identify in what manner someone is being misleading it tells you all you need to know about them.
@mastodonmigration Both the BBC and Wikipedia agree with you that it's Garber and some form of public holding.
It's the holding that seems to be the confusing part of all this. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8dm0ljg4y6o
This article is just more regurgitation of the company's misleading statement. Why the media simply accepts this non-answer is frustrating.
We know there are outside investors since Blockchain Capital invested $15M last year.
It's a simple matter, we should not have to speculate. Who owns stock in the company and how much? Are there any other convertible equity obligations?
@mastodonmigration via IPO investors include: Blockchain Capital, Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Amir Shevat (Darkmode Ventures), and Joe Beda (Kubernetes). They join 2023 Seed round investors Bob Young (Red Hat), Amjad Masad (Replit), Heather Meeker, Jeremy Johnson, Outset Capital, Mana Industries, Automattic, Protocol Labs, Katelyn Donnelly, Ali Evans, Stav Erez, Kris Nóva, Brad Fitzpatrick, Atlas Benjelloun, and Abdul Ly. Shevat and Beda invested in both rounds. #bluesky #socialmedia
Excellent sleuthing! So, not just Jay Graber and the employees.
Offhand, these do not seem like the most publicly benefity conscious folks.
It would be very good to get a breakdown of who owns how much?
@mastodonmigration LoL Graber is the "face" of the site...VC rules and #blockchain is a real worry here and everywhere..Series A investment includes Hyperbolic, Open Source AI...btw all the investors "seem" to be in US...but...
@bespacific @mastodonmigration That's quite the list
Sure is. Just screams progressive activism. Right!?
@mastodonmigration @bllgvn yeh of course...there is amongst the group AI, solar, bitcoin, healthcare...$$ Pitchbook
@bllgvn @mastodonmigration $$$$$...Fleet Space Technologies General Information is in Australia....I have listed 10 of 1,994 investments - these 10 appear to have biggest stake rnging from $17M to $90M+
Can you link the source(s)?