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