When Bluesky CEO Jay Graber walked on stage at SXSW 2025 for her keynote dialogue, she wore a big black T-shirt along with her hair pulled again right into a bun. At first look, it would seem as if she’s following the identical playbook that so many ladies in tech management have performed earlier than: downplaying her femininity to be taken critically.
The reality is far more fascinating than that. What may appear like your common black T-shirt is a delicate, but clear swipe at Mark Zuckerberg, a CEO who represents the whole lot that Bluesky is making an attempt to work in opposition to as an open supply social community.
The Meta founder and CEO has straight in contrast himself to the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. His personal shirt declared Aut Zuck aut nihil, which is a play on the Latin phrase aut Caesar aut nihil: “Both Caesar or nothing.”
Graber’s shirt — which straight copies the model of a shirt that Zuckerberg wore onstage not too long ago — says Mundus sine caesaribus. Or, “a world with out Caesars.”
With the best way Bluesky is designed, Graber is actually placing her cash the place her mouth (or shirt) is. As a decentralized social community constructed upon an open supply framework, Bluesky differs from legacy platforms like Fb in that customers have a direct, clear window into how the platform is being constructed.
“If a billionaire got here in and purchased Bluesky, or took it over, or if I made a decision tomorrow to vary issues in a manner that folks actually didn’t like, then they may fork off and go on to a different utility,” Graber defined at SXSW. “There’s already purposes within the community that offer you one other method to view the community, or you would construct a brand new one as properly. And in order that openness ensures that there’s at all times the flexibility to maneuver to a brand new various.”
In the meantime, Meta has alienated customers by interfering in how folks expertise its platforms, and Bluesky has straight benefitted from that. After Meta pushed controversial updates like coaching its AI on public consumer posts, or culling its third-party fact-checking applications, Bluesky skilled bursts of consumer development.
Nonetheless, Bluesky has a protracted method to go if it needs to topple the Roman Empire of Meta. Whereas Graber’s platform is closing in on 33 million complete customers, Meta has 3.35 billion every day energetic customers throughout all of its merchandise: Instagram, WhatsApp, and Fb. For Meta, that’s round 40% of the world’s inhabitants.
However for a fledgling social community, Bluesky has created sufficient of a cultural footprint that it’s sure to stay round. Rome was not constructed — nor was it toppled — in a day.
