Who is Jay “Lantian” Graber, the expert social media engineer who became CEO of Bluesky

Since the results of the United States presidential elections, the popularity of the decentralized microblogging social network Bluesky has been on the rise. The platform presents itself as the main alternative to X (formerly Twitter), led by Republican magnate Elon Musk, who has joined President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet in a position embodying the administration’s state-reduction policies.

The entrepreneur’s combative tone, combined with controversial decisions following the acquisition of X, accusations of covert advertising, and alleged attacks on free speech, have led politicians, celebrities, and even media outlets to leave the social network in search of more inclusive and transparent platforms.

In this context, Bluesky has managed to accumulate 4.4 million users in one weekend, leading downloads on the Play Store and Apple Store. But do you know who brought this social network to life? Today we tell you the story of Bluesky’s creator and CEO, Lantian “Jay” Graber.

Who is Jay Graber

Lantian “Jay” Graber is a software engineer born in Tulsa, Oklahoma (United States) in 1991. Her father is a Swiss mathematics professor, and her mother is a Chinese acupuncturist. When the Cultural Revolution reached China, the couple lost everything and fled to the United States in the 1980s.

Interestingly, the name “Lantian” in Mandarin Chinese means “blue sky,” chosen by her mother as a wish for her daughter to enjoy the freedom she could not have.

In 2009, Jay enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to study a degree in Science, Technology, and Society. While in her senior year, she received a $1,100 scholarship to co-found Penn Time Bank, a student time bank where tasks were divided into one-hour blocks. Students could barter work and exchange hours for agreed-upon tasks.

Professional career before Bluesky

In 2015, after graduating, Jay began working at SkuChain (Mountain View, California) as a software engineer. This company raised $14 million in venture capital to migrate supply chains, traditionally tracked through stock-keeping units, to a shared ledger system, akin to cryptocurrency blockchains.

Later, as SkuChain faced challenges, Jay moved to a small company in Moses Lake, Washington, where she soldered bitcoin mining computers, sparking her interest in cryptocurrencies. During the summer of 2016, the company Zooko Wilcox hired her as a junior developer to build Zcash, a cryptocurrency soon to be launched.

Her first experience with social networks came when she founded Happening Inc in March 2019, a social network aimed at connecting people at events, allowing them to post and comment on each other’s reactions.

Jack Dorsey Hires Jay to Lead Bluesky

In 2019, then-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, launched the Bluesky project as a research initiative to decentralize the platform. Two years later, Dorsey hired Jay Graber to develop a new AT communication protocol that is open and decentralized.

With this, the executive aimed to combat potential misinformation generated by algorithms, enabling developers, companies, or individuals to modify their experiences and decide what to see and what to avoid.

The engineer accepted the challenge on the condition that Bluesky would be legally independent of Twitter. Thus, the project was renamed “Bluesky Social” and became a public benefit LLC with the mission of “developing and promoting the large-scale adoption of technologies for open and decentralized public conversation.”

When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, the magnate cut all legal and financial ties with Bluesky Social. While the project persisted, it faced significant economic challenges, forcing Jay to develop and test the protocol at an accelerated pace.

Bluesky emerges as an independent platform

In February 2023, Bluesky launched as a beta version for iOS, accessible only through strictly limited invitations. Within months, the waitlist to join the platform grew to 1.32 million people, with only 35,000 users gaining access. Simultaneously, 1,320 developers and 22 teams globally utilized Bluesky’s protocol to build other networks such as Redsky, Skylight, and Seiun.

In an interview with Wired, Jay stated that “We have community guidelines to prevent harassment and hate speech, and we use moderation to try to create a healthy and welcoming social space on the Bluesky app by default.”

One million daily users

In February 2024, Bluesky finally opened access to the platform without requiring an invitation. Two days later, the platform had already received 1.32 million new registrations, and by September, it boasted over 9.9 million registered accounts.

With Donald Trump’s recent election as President of the United States and the hostile environment on X, the exodus to Bluesky is growing meteorically, with 1.1 million daily active users (over 19.9 million total registered accounts).

Jay herself expressed surprise at this growth through a post on the social network:

Wow another million in a day!

Thank you everyone — we’re going to do our best to make this place great for you.

[image or embed]

— Jay (@jay.bsky.team</a >) November 18, 2024, 3:31 PM

Regarding Bluesky’s future, the CEO says, “There is skepticism about whether this social model can work. People even ask what it is. So, first of all, we are trying to prove that this ecosystem has value for users and developers and that it can kickstart a new era of open innovation.”

For now, we have shown our vote of confidence by creating a new account on the social network 🙂

Photo: Wikipedia and Canva.